Once, Twice, Three Times
by SonicTeamFreeWill
Summary: Once: Doomsday. The Void. Her life was saved, but trapped in another world. Twice: Bad Wolf Bay. Supernova. He found he was a father, but he'd never know the child. Three times...read on. Rose/10 AU Rship but discreet & fits to canon I hope. Complete, pending potential epilogue
1. Doomsday

**AN ~ ****Firstly: I'm so SO sorry to my readers. I haven't updated in ages because school's back on and I've been working on a Twilight/Doc Who fic which is very hard because I want to use 11****th**** Doc but can't quite capture his character. This is NOT my TwixDW fic, it's a 10xRose fic. Inspired by BloodyDeath11's The Doctor's Daughter trailer on youtube, follows the summary there**

**First Doctor Who ffic; critisism welcome but plz be nice. This chap is heavy on the flashbacks, (flashbacks are cool.) they won't be like this in future. **

**Just to clarify this story is 10/Rose-ship as in they've slept together (hence the Daughter) but I try to keep the AU parts like this as discreet and hopefully true-to-character as possible.**

**As the title suggests, this story takes off at the end of Doomsday (2x14)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who! I am just a fan with a computer (Mad woman with a box LOL) who would do a lot for a sonic screwdriver!**

**Chapter One ~ ****Doomsday**

_They had done it! Both were breathless with effort and relief.__ They smiled at each other despite the howling winds, clinging tightly to the electromagnets that held them in this room; in this world._

_But suddenly, everything changed. Rose's lever spat sparks._

_"Offline," an automated, almost-female voice calmly announced. Rose looked at the lever: if she could just reach it, just pull it back into place..._

_"Hold on!" he implored her. The void was still open. It would probably hold out long enough. Rose wasn't willing to take the risk. Her fingers reached for the lever just as desperately as she clung to the electromagnet, and then more desperately. Her grip was slipping as she crept closer and closer to the lever._

_He glanced at the void, and then back to the struggling Rose. It seemed the void was pulling her in more hungrily now. She didn't notice: she just had to get to that lever. With a cry of terror and victory, her hand slipped off the electromagnet. She fell onto the lever, clasping the handle for dear life. His hearts galloped in his chest and he tightened his fingers around his own lifeline._

_"I've gotta get it upright!" Rose yelled as he looked on in horror, unable to assist her as her feet scrambled and slid along the smooth floor of the Torchwood Institute. Her hands were still tightly gripping the lever. She pushed it up...almost there...she glanced at him, drawing strength, and pushed it the rest of the way._

_"Online," the automated voice announced._

_A few more Darleks toppled past them. His hearts hammered out of sync. Rose's fingers were beginning to slip._

_"Rose, hold on!" he yelled, reaching for her. There was no way he could reach. Her feet were lifted off the ground, the void pulling harder as it seemed to sense its extra victim._

_"Hold on!" he shouted, still fighting to grab her as she groaned with the strain. Her fingers slipped and she switched hands, and again, and again, but the void was slowly dragging her beyond reach. She clasped both hands in fists around the lever and looked towards him for strength, for advice. He could give none. For one horrifying moment, he was frozen. He knew what was about to happen. He had failed her. And her mother, and father, and Mickey._

_Rose was gone. _

_"ROSE!" he screamed as she slipped away, his voice distorted by the void. "ROOOOSE!" They'd just saved the world. Maybe the whole universe. He didn't care. All that mattered was that he hadn't saved Rose._

The Doctor started, sitting bolt upright in his bed. His hearts were thundering again. He was sweating furiously. His sheets were a tangled mess; he had probably torn some again.

He sighed, clambering out of them, and wearily changed from his pyjamas to his suit, tie, Converse...

The TARDIS hummed quietly as he entered the console room. He tried to smile, remembering when he and Rose had been to the Impossible Planet. The ground had given way, dropping his TARDIS into the centre of the planet. _"But I need my ship! It's all I've got. Literally, the only thing." _Oh how wrong he'd been. How blind. He'd had Rose all along.

The TARDIS groaned and creaked, and the Doctor's light spirits were dampened. He put a hand on the console and sighed heavily.

"And here we are again, old girl. You, me, and the universe." He decided to make himself a cup of tea. Kindly, the TARDIS shifted its interior dimensions for him so he could prepare his drink in the console room. He barely heard the _hiss _as the liquid poured over the side of the cup and seeped into the controls.

_"I need- I need-"_

_"What do you need? Just say it. Tell me tell me tell me. Pain killers? Do you need asprin? Bar of protein? Paracetamol?"_

He jumped out of his reverie as sparks bit into his flesh from the shorted-out electrics. He realised he had been lost down memory lane and shook his head. He was starting to miss Jackie. He must be mad. Rose must have rubbed off on him.

_"Once the bridge collapses, that's it! You'll never be able to see her again - your own mother!" he roared, furious and frustrated that she didn't seem to grasp the gravity of the situation._

_"I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you," she replied calmly. Evenly. She knew the price she was paying and she was ready to give that up. For him._

His hearts ached, dragging him slowly from the memory this time. He laughed and shook his head. So Rose. He should have known she'd pull a crazy last-minute stunt like that. She was damn lucky Pete had snatched her out of the void's path just in time. She was stuck in a parallel world, with her family, just like the original plan.

_Is she safe? _the Doctor wondered, not for the first time. _Is she happy?_

He had to check. He couldn't just let these questions, memories, nightmares plague him. He had to see her, one last time.

.o.o.o.

The TARDIS growled and groaned in protest as she and the Doctor twirled slowly around a dying sun. He pressed buttons and pulled levers more hesitantly than usual, terrified of what was to come though he had already committed himself to it.

"Please help me out," he murmured. "As much time as you can."

The TARDIS shuddered, reluctantly promising. The Doctor squeezed his eyes tightly shut and stepped into the hologram sending zone. There was a crack...one little crack...he had instructed Rose to find it. He hoped she had.

He saw a beach. Grey. Windy. There! There she was! He couldn't help but smile as she turned towards him.

"Where are you?" she asked, brow creased with concern.

"Inside the TARDIS," he explained, struggling to keep a straight face. "There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection; I'm in orbit 'round a supernova. Burning up a sun just to say goodbye."

"You look like a ghost," she noted, sounding sadder than she probably meant to.

"Hold on." He adjusted the levels with his sonic screwdriver. The TARDIS groaned a warning. He ignored it.

"Can I ju-" Rose reached for his cheek. He cut her off.

"I'm still just an image. No touch." How often had he mocked the Darleks, stuck inside their boxes for their whole lives, without the ability to touch? Oh, how the tables had turned. Cruel irony.

"Can't you come through properly?" she asked with a pout, her eyes become larger and glassier. 

"The whole thing would fracture," he explained. "Two universes would collapse."

"So?" she breathed. He smiled sadly at her and she gasped, struggling to keep her emotions in check. He wondered if she noticed his shaking hands. He wanted to touch her so badly...

"Where are we?" he asked instead. "Where did the gap come out?" 

"We're in Norway," Rose explained.

"Norway, right." He nodded, taking a deep breath to try and move the lump in his throat.

"'Bout fifty miles ou' of Bergen," Rose explained, tearing up. "Darlig ulf Stranden."

"Darlek?"

"Darl-_ink. _'S Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay." Rose laughed breathlessly and rolled her eyes. The Doctor's eyes lit up at her happiness, her determination to stay positive, but tears still stung them viciously.

"How long have you got?" Rose's voice was finally breaking.

"'Bout two minutes."

There was so much to be said. What should come first? He wasted precious time considering it. It seemed Rose was thinking the same thing.

"I can't think of what to say!" she sniffed. He snorted and averted his eyes. Pete and Jackie seemed to have patched things up. The two of them and Mickey stood patiently by a large and durable-looking vehicle. They'd come with Rose all this way! He was touched, knowing that one he loved so dearly was surrounded by supporting and loving people.

"Still got Mr Mickey then?" He grinned.

"There's five of us now," Rose replied, her tone steadying out. "Mum, Dad, Mickey...and the baby."

His eyebrows rose. He glanced at Mickey, unable to decide whether to celebrate for them or feel jealous and sad and abandoned like he so desperately wanted to.

"You're not-" he stammered, looking back to Rose. "You and Mickey..?"

"Nah, don't be stupid," Rose sniffed. "'S yours."


	2. Never

**AN ~ OMG WOW so many people are loving this story! I'm stoked! ****Many thanks to my favouriters, subscribers and especially reviewers! Please guys, let me know what you like (and what you don't like, if you want). It's my 1****st**** Doctor Who fic but I want it to be good and I don't want it to be my last. Please please give me some praise/hints/something!**

**I managed to update sooner than I had expected! Much sooner actually. (Yay!) Unfortunately, I have to warn you not to get used to it. Readers of 'Stars' and 'A Valuable Experience' (if any of you guys even read this) I am working on those but no promises as to how soon they'll be updated! I'm still testing the waters of year 11 so my workload is kind of all over the place**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. But I can't wait for season 6! "I'm going to need a SWAT team ready to mobilize, street level maps covering all of Florida, a pot of coffee, twelve Jammy Dodgers...and a FEZ!" **

**Anyway...in all seriousness...**

**Chapter 2 ~ Never**

The Doctor's eyes dropped to Rose's abdomen. She grinned as that well known and loved confused expression crossed his features.

"Apple grass, aye?" He looked up again, banishing his confusion and flashing her an enthusiastic grin. It disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

"Rose, what can I do?" he asked, slightly breathless, verging on panic. "I can't come through, and I don't have any money..." he glanced at something on the TARDIS controls "...and I'm running out of time."

His eyes were so full of pain at that moment; black and fathomless, a glimpse into the wealth of guilt and anguish he had built up over the years. He and Rose and this child...they were a family. His second family. And he was about to lose this one too. Rose felt like crying at her beloved Doctor's vulnerability; in less than a minute, he would be alone again.

"We'll manage, Doctor," she promised him, putting a hand over her abdomen. "Don't you worry about us. The universe needs you."

"No, you need me Rose." The Doctor shook his head. Rose wished she could take his hand, just once more. Instead, she locked her eyes on his, daring him to look away.

"Doctor. When you go, I want you to find someone else. Show 'em the universe, show 'em the miracles you showed me. Show them that they are _brilliant."_

She did such an accurate imitation of his voice that he snorted with laughter. It came out half a sob.

"I'll find a way, Rose," he vowed. "It might take me a million years but I'll find a way. If I can't come through, I'll get something to you. Money, deeds to a house-"

Rose held up her hand.

"I won' ask you to forge' us," she said solemnly, "but don't torture yourself over this, Doctor. You need to do some good, not just for us. You're the Doctor, Defender of the Universe."

Both of them sniggered a little, even though all three hearts were slowly crumbling under the pain. Rose was quaking with sobs; salty tears decorating her cheeks and spattering onto the ground as she fought to keep herself in control for their last few seconds together. Tears began to slide down the Doctor's cheeks.

"Ten seconds," he announced hoarsely. Rose nodded her acknowledgement, blinking furiously to clear the tears from her own eyes.

"I'll teach 'em all about you," she promised. "Evriffin I know. All our adventures: the Doctor and Rose and the TARDIS. The first time we met; do you remember? You were a different man back then...but not so different." Now she was talking just so the Doctor wouldn't have to. The memories were sucking the life from her, crushing her heart even more powerfully and mercilessly than before, but if she could bring some happiness to the Doctor before he lost her, she would do it.

"Do you remember?" she asked. "The first thing you said to me was _run._ I was bein' attacked by mannikins. Mom didn't like you much back then either..." Rose trailed off. The Doctor was fading; his image was almost transparent, flickering like a candle flame.

"Rose..." His voice was very quiet, and chopped up a little by the failing connection, but she strained to listen. These would very likely be his last words to her, ever, and she wanted to cherish them.

"I'll always love you, Rose," he managed. "Both of you."

And then he was gone.

Rose cupped a hand over her mouth, pinching her nose and trying to control herself as the chill of the wind returned to bite her. Some of her tears had reached her lips, even her tongue. They were acrid. Her eyes were hot, her cheeks stinging, but other than that, Rose was numb.

Someone...or maybe several people...hauled her towards the Jeep. They put her in her seat and strapped her in as if she were a toddler who couldn't manage it herself. Then they wrapped their arms around her and pulled her against them. They were very warm. Rose hadn't realised she'd gotten so cold out there.

"You're freezin'," Mickey's voice admonished. "What were you doin', talking to him for so long?"

"It's all the time we have, Mickey." Rose's voice was so quiet she could barely hear it, but Mickey had heard.

"What d'you mean?" He frowned. "He's comin' back, isn' he?"

"No, Mickey." Her voice trembled with hysteria. She clenched the fabric of Mickey's jacket with one hand and pushed her face harder against his shoulder.

"But he's the Doctor! He'll come back. He's got to! He can't just leave you and Junior - the coward!"

"Don't say that, Mickey!" Rose wailed. "He can't ever come back because the crack is gone! We're sealed off now! He can never come back! Not ever, Mickey!"

"Why d'you keep sayin' my name?"

"I don't know, Mickey," she mumbled. "I don't know."

Mickey made sure his arm was firmly around Rose as she quietly faded out of consciousness. He'd been right all along. Two hearts? Yeah, right. More like no hearts. That supposed 'Doctor' deserved his eternity alone if he treated everyone he loved like this.

.o.o.o.

The Doctor tried to stay standing. He must not lose control; he must never lose control. If he ever did, especially in the TARDIS, he could do something stupid and destroy the universe.

"I don't care!" he proclaimed, throwing his head back and accusing the roof of the TARDIS. He held his arms out in surrender, waiting for someone to strike him down. "Do you hear me? I don't care! I could just pull a lever, fly into the Sun, and destroy this whole God-damned solar system! I could explode the TARDIS, create a Time storm, and suck the whole universe in if I wanted to!"

And oh, how he wanted to. But he knew he wouldn't. With one last roar of frustration, the Doctor's fiery rage left him. He cursed under his breath and kicked the base of the TARDIS control column as hard as he could. Hot tears were pouring down his cheeks now, hissing as they evaporated off the TARDIS machinery.

He shuddered violently, and quickly grasped two of the handles on the side of the TARDIS control panel. He squeezed them so hard his knuckles went white, but it wasn't enough to keep him standing. Groaning, sobbing and crying out with agony, he fell to his knees, barely aware of the loud _clang _and sharp, biting grazes the grates caused.

The TARDIS moaned in sympathy with her friend and master, and shifted her inner dimensions again. He found himself on soft carpet all of a sudden and looked up. The first thing he saw was a photograph of Rose and her mother, hugging each other and laughing as they tried to get the angle right, since Jackie was snapping it herself. Wedged into the corner of the frame was an old Valentine's Day card from Mickey.

_What's in a name? _was written on the cover. _That which we call a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet._

Rose's life with Mickey was none of his business. Both of them had assured him it was over anyway, and he trusted them. The Doctor hadn't meant to pry. Even if he had, he never would have gotten further than the cover. He was paralysed, frozen in place on his hands and knees, staring up at Rose's beside table. Tears slowly dripped to the floor as the realisation sunk in.

_What's in a name?_

Rose had asked her fair share of times, but she'd never pushed. She'd never given him a strange look whenever someone reacted to his mysterious title - in fact, she'd often given _them _the strange look and replied; "yes, just 'The Doctor.'"

After all they'd been through together...even when they'd finally admitted they loved each other...even when they'd kissed...even when they'd made love in those apple-grass fields of New Manhattan...

He had never told Rose his name.


	3. Prophecy

**AN ~ Hi guys! Yeah I know, it's about time. I'm sorry it took so long but my life recently makes the Doctor's look like a clear blue sky. There certainly is a lot of running involved! LOL. Anyhow, yesterday and today I managed to whip up 2 (that's right TWO) chapters of this fic! I'm posting one now but do you reckon I should post or save the second one? It kind of works as a 'part II' to this one...whatever you think, but I'm probs gonna get time to write more this weekend, coz I have 5 days of weekend with nothing to do! (and man am I looking forward to it!)**

**Hope you feel intrigued by this chapter...muahahaha**

**Chapter 3 ~ Prophecy**

The Tyler household – plus Mickey – was very quiet in the weeks to come. Rose got a job, though the thought of it nearly made her cry. Now she knew why the Doctor had looked so hurt on the Impossible Planet, demoted to laundry assistant and with the likelihood of staying there, since the TARDIS was gone and there was no other way off the planet. At least she wasn't stuck in a dull domestic job like that. She just wouldn't be able to stand it. Parallel Torchwood needed active members, and she enjoyed herself, even though – or perhaps because – she kept imagining the Doctor offering her quickly-spoken, long-winded but valuable advice.

Jackie was, as many grandmothers-to-be are, extremely excited about the new baby, and Rose had to keep reminding her mother who was the one in charge of her pregnancy. Mickey valiantly stood beside her, even though it hurt him to think of the path she had taken with the Doctor. There were some days when she felt so angry, she spent hours in the Torchwood training zone, exploding things with guns from all over the solar system. Mickey was there. Other days, she'd have to call in sick, bent over the sink all morning and stuck on the lounge all afternoon, head throbbing. Mickey was there too. She yelled and screamed and bawled her eyes out, slammed doors in his face, hit him, hugged him, laughed hysterically at the simplest things and then went back to snapping at the drop of the hat, but Mickey was always there. Rose felt sorry for him for supporting her so valiantly. She hated the way she had treated him. She wanted to thank him, and to apologise, but she just couldn't think of an adequate way.

Pete kept her out of the more dangerous Torchwood missions, which irritated her to some extent, but which she understood and, deep down, appreciated. The baby she was carrying was very special, for a range of reasons, and she would do anything to protect it. As her belly swelled, Rose began to wonder – was it a boy or a girl? What would he or she look like? What would they be like? What sorts of things would they enjoy? Of course, with these came the more painful questions; what qualities would he or she inherit from the Doctor? Would his or her half-human body be able to cope with them? Would he or she ever get to meet their father?

All these thoughts plagued Rose as she sat, curled up on her bed on New Year's Eve, staring out the window, waiting for the fireworks. She sighed a little, melancholy because of the monotony of her life, and heartsick because she missed the Doctor. It had been nearly three months since she had seen him last. As the first explosive shot through the air and bright red sparks seemed to shower London, she remembered when she had first met the Doctor - not when he had grabbed her hand and saved her from the manniquins, but earlier; the 'new new Doctor' had smiled at her and said, "I bet you're going to have a great year." She hadn't recognised him then, of course, but she took that as a promise. In the future, the Doctor was going to visit her past and tell her something – perhaps he would visit her future too. Unfortunately, she would have to go the long way. Age.

"Rose." Mickey rapped his knuckles on the door to her bedroom. Rose turned around.

"Yeah?"

"Your mum says dinner's ready. Come on downstairs."

"Thanks Mickey, but I'm no' hungry," she murmured.

"Nah, c'mon! Pete's got a surprise for ya." Mickey sat down on the bed beside her. "No harm in it, eh? Allons-y – aint that what the Doctor used to say?"

Rose smiled sadly, her fingers lingering over her growing abdomen. She conjured a smile, heartened by Mickey's kindness, and got up to follow him.

"Woah!" she cried, swaying as if the ground had shifted. Her arms flailed wildly, seeking something with which she might recover her balance, but failing to find it. She passed out, and Mickey dove to catch her before she hit the ground too hard.

Pete and Jackie came running bearing tongs and a whisk, still dripping with cream.

"Rose! Rose!" Jackie cried, glancing from Mickey and Rose on the bedroom floor, to Pete, who had discarded his tongs.

"She'll wake up in a few seconds, Jackie," he said, though he didn't seem all too comfortable with the situation either. Luckily, Rose was starting to show signs of life.

"Mickey," she whimpered, just like she had in the car, driving away from Bad Wolf Bay. "Mickey, I'm scared."

Mickey was scared too. He held Rose closer, rocking her gently, waiting for her to calm down.

"_Mickey." _This time the voice was not Rose's. At least; not quite. Mickey's hold loosened. He was tempted to back away. Jackie and Pete had already taken a step towards the doorway. Rose twisted in his arms, and opened her eyes to look up at him. Golden light as bright as the sun shone from them, and Mickey was forced to look away. He pulled his arms from around Rose to cover his face with as he half-crawled half-staggered his way back from the blinding light. He hit her wardrobe and fell to the ground again. Jackie and Pete came over to him, all eyes on their daughter.

Rose lay on the ground, mouth wide upon as if to take a deep breath; open eyes glowing like white-hot coals. She didn't look like she was going to move any time soon. Mickey tried to steady his breathing and think about what might be happening to Rose.

Suddenly, she flipped onto her stomach. In a predator's crouch, she looked around, her neck curving and then twitching like some sort of reptile. As if she could sniff him out, her attention locked onto Mickey.

"Wh-who are you?" he stammered, trying to push himself further back.

"_I am all that is, will be, or has been. I am the Beginning and the End and the things in between," _Rose rasped. "_I am Time, I am Space – of all, I am Queen."_

"It can't be..." Pete murmured. "Bad Wolf?"

"Bad Wha'?" Jackie demanded, far louder and more blatant than her partner.

"Shh!" Mickey hissed. Bad-Wolf-Rose was continuing.

"_On the Seventh Day of the Seventh Year, when the skies go dark with hate and fear, on a planet oh so far from here...Mickey Smith; your death is near."_


	4. Dream

**AN ~ Back again guys and let me say a big THANKS to everyone who has subscribed to, favourited and reviewed my story; I love you guys! And I am so happy so many people are enjoying it! The drama continues with this chapter – it was initially a part II to chapter 3 but I decided to separate them. I hope you are intrigued by this chapter!**

**Disclaimer: DW is not mine...though I feel really sorry for the Flesh Doctor :( I hope his molecular memory survived. Also, you may notice a reference in this chap to 'The Doctor's Wife' (season 6) – I just thought it was so sweet I had to mention it! **

**Gotta go; enjoy the chapter!**

**Chapter 4 ~ Dream**

Martha Jones slept peacefully in her room, deep within the TARDIS, but the Doctor was restless. He had a rug and pillow wedged under the TARDIS controls, but next to them sat a pot of tea, and on the other side of that, the Doctor muddled around with the underside of the panel above him, Sonicking here and there, experimenting. The grates weren't particularly comfortable – sometimes he wished the control room had a nice smooth floor, maybe glass, with a big pit underneath it to work in; he felt like a workman fixing an Earth automobile, lying under it like this. The TARDIS grumbled at this comparison, and he put a hand on the solid part of the panel, part of her frame.

"I didn't mean it old girl," he apologised. After a moment, his hand slid down from the panel, back to the Sonic Screwdriver. He gently turned it off and pulled himself up from the floor. Strolling around the control panel with that swinging gait this body seemed so suited to, the Doctor looked around.

"So, where to this time, eh?" he pondered. After tweaking a few controls, his pensiveness met with nothing but further silence, he sighed.

"Look at me. I'm talking to a machine."

The TARDIS groaned. He shook his head.

"Not what I mean!" He defended himself, careful to keep his voice hushed so he wouldn't wake Martha. "You know, sometimes I wish you and I could have a heart-to-heart. A real conversation; none of this I-talk-you-groan rubbish. Even something simple...That'll be the day...when you say 'Hello Doctor, it's wonderful to meet you.' I wonder what kind of voice you'd have..."

The soft sound of a child's laughter interrupted him, drawing him from one imagining to another. This one had been reoccurring lately; nearly every day since he had changed his DNA matrix and become John Smith. He knew that man was him, somewhere, and in a strange way he remembered all poor John had been through. The whole experience had brought to the surface a lot of unwelcome fears and insecurities...and longings. This daydream – or nightmare, it was impossible to tell which - reflected those longings, providing him with joy and inspiration but each time, leaving him burning with pain and regret.

It began with he and Rose, wandering along the top of the White Cliffs of Dover, an albatross circling and wheeling above them, and their child circling and wheeling in the grass not far off. He would begin to recite _I wandered lonely as a cloud_, by William Wordsworth, but when he got past the daffodil part, Rose would laugh and interrupt him.

"_So," _Rose would say. "_You in a house, eh? Guess I win. What do we do with the TARDIS now?"_

"_Oh, I'll think of something," _he would promise, though to be honest he couldn't think what. If it were up to him, he and Rose and their child would travel the universe all together, but Rose insisted that they at least wait until the child was older. Given his rate of accidental dangerous landings, he could see her point...but point or no, keeping the TARDIS idle for however long it might take was risky – especially since one didn't usually keep sentient police boxes in one's basement.

"_Are you telling me you never thought about what would happen if you fell in love, decided to settle down?" _Rose would put a hand on his arm, stop him. The sun would be going down, even though it had been noon seemingly a few seconds earlier. Before he could say another word, it was dark, and he woke up on the TARDIS floor. Alone.

This time was no different, and the void of pain and regret was as deep and vacuous as ever. It had been nearly six months since he had last set eyes on Rose Tyler, but she was as vivid in his mind as always. He hoped she would stay that way, so that he might never forget her, but oh it was draining to dream of her; empty whispers of what could have been.

Pulling himself together, he dragged himself to his feet once more and ran a hand over his face and through his hair, half expecting Rose to snort with laughter from behind him and make a witty but somehow touching comment.

"Doctor?" Martha's voice made him jump. He looked up like a startled deer, towards the hallway where Martha was standing; black hair raked into a high ponytail, pale purple pyjamas just a bit too long, but that she had refused to swap because she liked them. Martha rubbed at her bleary eyes and blinked a few times before approaching the Doctor, examining him to make sure her actions were appropriate. He did not object.

"Are you okay?" she asked, taking a better look at him now the weariness was gone from her eyes. The Doctor suddenly felt very weary himself, as if the chasm of pain from after his nightmare had been suddenly flooded with fatigue. He sat down, as frail as the old man he was, cross-legged beside his teapot. Martha ducked down the hallway once more and soon returned with two cups. She poured out a cup of tea for each of them and looked inquisitively over the top of them, politely pleading as she offered one to him. He shook his head, just the slightest of movements, and Martha inclined hers, deflated but respectful. Both of them returned their gaze to the large rings of greenish light glowing on the TARDIS walls, the potential for conversation being left untouched.

"Thanks," he said, when at last he had finished.

"What, for the tea? You made it. I just poured." Martha shrugged, but she raised an eyebrow and examined his expression. It was hard to read from this angle, but it bore heavy emotional scars. It wasn't long, of course, before the Doctor patched up a mask over it and insisted that they should both be getting to bed. Reluctantly, she obeyed, although she was tempted to demand to know what the Doctor was keeping so determinedly from her.

The Doctor sighed heavily as Martha left. This night had been even more draining than he had anticipated. Perhaps he should go to bed after all.

Half-dragging himself through the halls, thankful for the TARDIS' ability to manipulate her corridors, the Doctor was already kicking off his Converse and yanking off his tie, leaving them strewn across the floor as he at last approached his bed.

Suddenly, the TARDIS stopped whirring. It stopped clicking and groaning and buzzing. It stopped altogether. Even the lights shut down: never a good sign. Instinctively, the Doctor whipped out his Screwdriver and flicked it on, green light glowing as it awaited further instructions. He wasn't sure what was on his ship or how it got there, but he doubted it was good. His eyes darted around, searching for the intruder, and he saw the thinnest, tiniest wisp of what seemed to be golden light float through the air towards him.

"What are you..?" he murmured, lowering his 'weapon' and feeling around in his breast pocket for his Brainy Specs to investigate. Before he could reach them, the room jolted as if they were going through an earthquake.

"_Doctor."_

The golden light glowed and dimmed as if it were speaking but the voice was far too resonant and deep to be from a creature – or more likely, creatures – that small. It sounded familiar, actually, now that the Doctor thought about it. It sounded like Rose, when she was filled with the spirit of the TARDIS; with the power over life and death and future and past.

"_I am all that you think I am and more," _the voice said, though it didn't quite sound like an answer to his question. "_You wait in hope, Wanderer, for what lies in store. You will find her again when your number is four."_

"When my number is four? What does that mean?" He loved a good riddle, but at a time like this, even a Time Lord mind needs a little help.

"_The more you ask of me, the less I can say. One you have met will not stay away. One now beside you will not for long stray."_

"Great, very helpful. Thanks." Irritated, he shrugged off his jacket at flung it towards the mysterious light. It dispersed, then regrouped and continued, apparently unfazed by the interruption.

"_They all will help you to find what you seek. Those that you search for not so out of reach. The number is four when reality leaks."_

_Those that you search for..._did it know? Had it thought of a way he could find Rose? The Doctor's hearts sped up, excited by the possibility, but the golden light was floating away.

"Wait, I don't understand. No, wait-!" The Doctor spun on his heels, chasing it with his eyes and trying to scan it with the Sonic Screwdriver. The scanner remained inactive; the golden mystery was gone. The TARDIS powered up again, dim night-settings returning. Filled with hope, confusion and fear, the Doctor tucked his Screwdriver under his pillow and prepared for another restless night.


	5. Progress

**AN ~ I know I said 'tomorrow' to some of you aaaages ago, but my computer was being annoying (to say the least) that day and I haven't had a chance to finish off the chapter and post it since then. I'm so sorry for the wait! Oh well. Things really start to get complicated this chapter. Stay with me, I've got a tricky task ahead of myself :) Hope this one gets you on the edges of your seats! (I have a feeling you guys are going to come after me if I take too long with the next update!)**

**Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine, but the tragedy of John Smith made me sad :( Brave man. And is it just me or is it TOTALLY NOT FAIR that we have to wait til September for the rest of the season? Grrrrrrr.**

**Chapter 5 ~ Progress**

The Bad Wolf Incident faded into the background over time, and of course Rose knew nothing of it anyway, but Pete's surprise was demanding increasing attention and time. Rose was so intent on the project that the others had to force her into time off as her pregnancy developed. Physically, Rose was handling the situation very well, but she didn't like lying in bed all day. To stay her, the others brought her files and plans from their work for her to look over, amend and improve.

"Alright, we think we've got it this time," Pete announced, rubbing his hands together with anticipation as he half-danced through the door one afternoon. Rose's attention was immediately removed from the television. Like a child awaiting candy, she almost snatched the files off her dad and feverishly examined the top pages; a blueprint and a page of scrawled notes.

"It's a sort of...dimension canon," he attempted to explain. "In theory – quantum physics, sort of – you'd be able to travel from this universe to his and back. At this stage it will only work for short periods, but once we've built it and run a few tests, we're going to try working out the kinks in the design. You see here, on the left..."

Rose was not paying attention to him though. She was staring in awe at the contents of the file, now strewn on the uneven blue blanket before her.

_Universe A rime behind Universe B _was scrawled on one of the pages. _Fashion similar. B Technology advanced. A Torchwood and UNIT mostly undercover._

And on another:

_Martha Jones, Harriet Jones, Ianto Jones – blood relation unlikely. All know the Doctor._

_The darkness is coming_

_Harold Saxon Master_

_Joan Redfern passed away_

_John Smith. Gallifrey Scotland?_

_Kiss_

The list went on similarly, listing names and random facts about them. Rose frowned and held it up to her father.

"What's this?"

"We were experimenting with some interdimensional technology and a lot of info came through. It was all jumbled up. We only managed to make sense of a few words and images, though they don't seem to fit together all that well. We hoped you might be able to help."

Rose hummed quietly to herself and scanned further down the list.

_The stars are going out_

_Jack Harkness. Torchwood, Earth A_

_Sarah Jane canine –_ this was scribbled out, and amended _K9._

_10_

_He will knock four times_

_Donna Noble exterminated saved lost_

_Dalek Hoover_

_Nothing can stop it_

_Cyberman_

_Time Lord _

_biological metacrisis_

_I don't want to go_

_11_

Her hand trembled. Here there were some names she knew. Captain Jack, Sarah Jane, Dalek, Cyberman, Time Lord. But what did it all mean?

Suddenly, Mickey came crashing through the door.

"Pete!" he shouted. "Pete it's Davis and Arista – they're gone."

"What?" Rose struggled to sit up with her awkward belly. Pete and Mickey were already leaving by the time she was sitting upright putting shoes on. She chased them – slowly, though she had kept up her fitness - but was surprised to find they had stopped in the middle of the street. They held a large, excessively folded sheet of paper between them – a map perhaps – and kept looking and pointing at the sky. Rose followed their gazes.

_The stars are going out._

She was sure of it. Or was that just because she had read it, and she was scaring herself? She blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes, then looked up again to check. Right before her eyes, the pinpoints of light seemed to extinguish themselves. Shocked, she ran up to Mickey and Pete to see what they knew. Suddenly, she felt a stabbing pain in her gut. She bent over – not quite double, because of the belly – and her face contorted.

"Rose! What are you doing out of bed!" Pete exclaimed.

Rose panted as the pain subsided.

"I'm sorry," she managed, straightening. "I just had to come...Davis and Arista? I thought you said this stuff came from the other universe."

She held up the mysterious list, and Pete and Mickey shared a glance of concern, disapproval and fondness.

"It _is_ another universe," Mickey replied. "But the list is from Universe A, that's the Doctor's universe. Davis and Arista were in a different universe – Universe C if you like. We were experimenting with basic inter-dimensional technology."

"But the stars," Rose glanced at the sky again. The others nodded.

"It's happening in all universes – more and more distress calls are coming through the IDC pathways. We're trying to get in touch with the Jones' in this universe to see if they know anything but it's not looking good. None of them know anything about any of this."

"Of course they haven't. They've never met the Doct- aah!" Rose groaned, straining for a few seconds before the pain passed.

"Rose, sit down," Pete ordered, his voice grave as he pulled the phone out of his pocket. Mickey pulled Rose down with him so that they both sat on the curb of the street. Rose fidgeted but Mickey kept his arms wrapped around her.

"Hey, let me go!" she twisted and writhed, feeling trapped even though he was not holding her tightly. Another pain seized her, this one lasting longer than the first.

"You shouldn't 'a come out here, Rose," Mickey scolded, thought his voice held more foreboding than chastisement.

"I believe you," Rose was starting to pant with the effort these strange pains took out of her. "I am never running pregnant again. Remind me to write a book – 100 things not to do while pregnant."

Mickey laughed uncertainly and glanced at Pete, who had his cell to his ear. Rose relaxed slightly, leaning on his arm instead of fighting it.

"Mickey – ow! _Aargh _that one was definitely worse!" Her relaxation was short-lived. As if someone had plunged a knife into her belly, she tried to curl up. Sounding increasingly feverish, she demanded: "Pete – Dad – what's happening to me? You don't think-?" 

Ambulance sirens blared, cutting her off, and Rose began to panic. Was this labour? It felt worse than anything she had ever suffered before – physically at least – and given the nature of many of her adventures with the Doctor, there had been a few bruises and broken bones. Even a concussion once...although, that could have just been the Hoflefean mead. And what came afterwards? Could she handle a baby? Really, she didn't know what she was doing. What if something went wrong?

"Excuse me ma'am, please try to calm down." Gentle hands guided her towards the ambulance, and sat her down on the floor of the back of it so that she could relax a little. Rose took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, and looked for the face that had granted her such valuable advice. The instant she saw it, something clicked.

"Martha Jones?" she wondered, at the same time questioning her own mind – how had she come up with that?

"Yes," the paramedic nodded slowly. "I'm sorry Miss-"

"Tyler."

"Tyler. I don't believe we've met."

"No," Rose agreed. "We haven't."

"Well, never mind," Martha brushed it off amiably and climbed past Rose into the back of the ambulance. "Would you mind just coming up here and lying down for me? That's it." She helped Rose up and over to the bed, where she swiftly began fastening the bed's safety belts. Rose was still confused about her revelation, but tried to shift her attention to Davis, Arista and the stars going out.

_This is the Osterhagen Key._

Rose jumped.

"Did you say something?"

Martha looked up from the screen she was reading, startled.

"No, why?"

"Never mind."


	6. Dalek

**AN ~ YES I AM SORRY! I am so, sooooooo sorry guys. I cannot even remember the last time I updated this story! So I have two chapters for you – some great leaps forward that took me quite a while to sort out in my brain. I haven't JUST been sitting around doing nothing for the past...however many months!**

**Anyway, I hope these two chapters have you tingling!**

**Chapter 6 ~ Dalek**

"Mum, no, I said I'd do it," Rose Tyler stormed into the family home already knowing that her mother was attempting to give the young Jennifer Elizabeth Tyler a bath. Caught, Jackie left the bathroom – in all its soapy, half-flooded glory – to the surprisingly enthusiastic mother and headed down to the kitchen to make dinner.

"Where's your father?" she asked as she passed Rose on the stairs.

"No idea," Rose replied. "I heard he and Mickey were testing the canon today. For real."

"Hope it works, eh? Took 'em long enough to get it back together after Davis and Arista disappeared. Plus, I reckon the stars are goin' faster now, Rose. Did you see on the news the other nigh'..."

Rose tuned out her mother's voice as she entered the bathroom. It was a completely hopeless mess, but she couldn't help grinning when she saw her precious Jenny in the middle of it all, having a miniature battle between a My Little Pony and a Transformers figurine. This was no doubt the cause of most of the bathroom's flooding.

Rose set a towel against the counter and leant against it, watching her little girl play in the tub in the middle of the room. It had been nearly one year since Bad Wolf Bay. Nearly four months since Jenny's birth – and the child already looked as many years old. Every night, while she was sleeping, regeneration energy would glow around her, and she would grow, until the sun's rays chased the regeneration energy away. Perhaps, Rose thought, this was why the Doctor's first incarnation was so much older than his current one: maybe, until they actually had to save the energy for regenerating, this stuff just made Time Lords _grow._Maybe that's why the Doctor didn't sleep very much. The way Rose reckoned it, with the ratio of running, eating and sleeping that man did, he_had_ to have this amazing energy on his side to get through it all.

"Rose – dinner!" Jackie called from downstairs.

"All right, Jenny, time to get out of there. The battle is over. Stardust wins." Rose leant over and picked up the pony from where it lay face-down in the water and put on a false voice, too high and American to be her own. "Look Jenny I won!"

"But _Mummy,_" Jenny whined. "The Daleks killed Stardust. She didn't win."

Instinctive dread and fear seized Rose's heart. She froze, one hand on the edge of the tub and the other around Stardust's neck. She had told her daughter lots of stories, but she had never _once_ mentioned the Daleks.

"What's a Dalek, sweetie?" she asked, trying to be casual as she set Stardust on the counter she had been leaning against. She pointed to the Transformer in Jenny's tiny fist. "Is that a Dalek?"

"No, Mummy!" Jenny scolded, as if it was a ridiculous suggestion. "Daleks don't have legs. And they have one eye, kind of like a snail, but a snail has two. And they say 'exterminate' a lot."

Rose frowned. She could hear her mother coming up the stairs, probably to warn them that dinner was getting cold. But this was more important.

"Do you know what that word means, Jenny?" she asked. The little girl shrugged, pouted and studied her Transformer.

"No. But it doesn't sound like a very nice word. Daleks aren't very nice. They killed Stardust. I'm hungry. Is dinner ready?"

Struggling to fathom the gravity what her daughter had just said, Rose helped Jenny out of the tub, dried her off and slipped her nightgown over her head before sending her down for dinner. Rose followed Jenny from the room, deciding to clean up after she had eaten – she was feeling light headed enough as it was.

Standing right outside the doorway, Jackie watched her granddaughter descend the stairs with a look of concern. When Rose emerged, channelling subtlety for once in her life, Jackie leant over and whispered;

"Did she say...Dalek?"

.o.o.o.

"Dalek? Are you sure?" Pete paced the kitchen.

"Yep," Rose nodded.

"And she described it, yeah?" Mickey asked.

"Yep."

"And you're sure you've never brought it up." Pete suggested.

"Nope. You?"

"Of course not!" Mickey and Pete objected at the same time. "When she was born, you said no Daleks, so we haven't said anything about any Daleks."

"Me neither, Rose," Jackie put in – though she frankly didn't have all that much to tell about the creatures.

Rose pinched the bridge of her nose, and the fingers of her other hand drew little grey scratches in the white porcelain of the mug she was holding. Steam rose from the tea straight into her face but she didn't mind the heat of it.

"D'you think maybe she's havin' dreams?" Jackie wondered. "You know, some connection wif the Doctor or summink?"

"Jackie, come on, that's-"

"Possible." Rose interrupted her father's rebukes, stepping away from the counter with revelation dawning on her face. "He is her father, after all, and he can mess around in people's heads. He says it's like openin' doors. But maybe there is no door between them – maybe they're connected somehow. Plus, me mucking around with vortex manipulators and dimension canons wouldna helped. It is possible isn't it Dad?"

"Well, I suppose," Pete conceded. "Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

The room fell silent. No-one was sure either way.

"Mummy, Mummy, look what I drew!" Oblivious to the seriousness of the conversation she was interrupting, Jenny padded into the kitchen in her nightgown bearing a wax crayon depiction of three people, a blue box and a metal dog.

"Jenny, you're supposed to be in bed!" Mickey reprimanded.

"Couldn't sleep. I had a dream about the TARDIS. It exploded. Daddy was sad. Then he exploded too. So I drew this picture of him and Mummy and Sarah Jane and K9 because it was better than my dream."

Rose stared at the back of her baby girl's head. How could this have happened? She wasn't expecting a normal child, no way, but this was above and beyond anything she had anticipated. What was it that made her child have nightmares about a man in a box in a parallel universe, who she had never met?

Hang on – the Doctor 'exploded'? As in, he regenerated?

Mickey mimicked the TARDIS noise and then raced a laughing Jenny back to her bedroom. Rose remained in the kitchen. She tried to take a sip of tea, but her hands were shaking violently. Had the Doctor changed again? Would he remember her? Would this new Doctor even want her if he did?

She sighed, turned and poured the tea down the sink.


	7. Seek

**AN ~ I say again, sorry for my complete lack of updates! Well, not complete. I have been spending my time on some other Doctor Who fics; namely**

**TheWomanWhoDidn'tKilltheDoctor:collection of River Song oneshots, now has two 'chapters'.**

**ThePowerofGoodbye: another collection of oneshots, this time about the Doctor's goodbyes. Only has one chapter so far, a River Song one, but am planning to have Rose, Martha, Donna etc as well when I write them**

**DaysofChristmas:yet another collection of oneshots, well, more like drabbles as they are really short, based on prompts from the TARDIS Christmas challenge**

**I'd love it if you checked them out, especially the Christmas one if you really can't stand River**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who :(**

**Chapter 7 ~ Seek**

Donna Noble couldn't believe she had turned down the Doctor's offer. What an idiot. She had been looking for him almost ever since, and had come across many a bizarre case of poisoning or hallucination in her efforts to seek out alien activity, where she might run into him. She had never managed to track down actual extra terrestrials, however, until today – which is why she was running through the London underground with people standing like statues all around her: she was being followed by a great beast which looked a bit like an oversized mole. It could sense her movement; she had thought of stopping but that had nearly got her killed, as the beast could hear her heart and see even strands of hair that shifted in the breeze.

This was stupid, she realised as she leapt onto the tracks and pounded gravel northbound, praying no train would come through before she had the opportunity to get out of there. The giant mole was gaining on her, its lopsided sprint eating up the gravel and sending sizable chunks flying at its prey.

Donna leapt for the nearest door, some maintenance shaft or other, and found someone already opening it for her. 

"Ma'am," he said, before slamming the door shut, pulling her away from it and then pulling out two pistols. He was American. Donna scowled.

"Oi!" she roared. "Who the hell are you?" 

"Cap'n Jack Harkness, ma'am," he replied, just before the giant mole burst its head through the door. With one of the pistols, he shot it straight between the eyes. Donna shoved herself back against the wall, horrified, as it shuddered and moaned and then disappeared. Then Jack shot the other gun at the wall beside her, and Donna immediately jumped up.

"Wha' did you do to it?" she demanded.

"Squareness gun," Jack explained, preparing to climb through the hole he had created in the concrete.

"No' that-" Donna choked, still flustered, _"__That!__"_

She pointed at the doorway, to where the alien head had been, and Jack shrugged.

"It's not dead," he said. "It's back on its home world. Now come on Miss Noble, it's time to be getting home."

"Watch it space man," she muttered. Nevertheless, she followed Jack through the 'squareness' hole into a dank and – hopefully – rarely used passage way that probably actually did exist on the other side of the wall they had just climbed through. Jack grabbed her hand and led her back to the nearest station, where they fit right into the crowd, which was bustling again as usual.

Two police officers, watching from near the ticket booths, saw them emerge from the passageway and immediately gave chase.

"Uh oh," Jack said, but it was with a grin. He pulled a wrist band out of his pocket and shoved it onto Donna's hand. "Take this."

"Well, don't have much choice now do I?"

Donna's retort was lost to the wind as Jack pulled her up the stairs, out onto the street, and into an alley way.

"Dead end," Jack announced. Donna baulked, but Jack kept pulling her forward. "Ready? Think of home, Donna!"

There was a sonic sort of thump, like blowing a speaker, and then the alleyway and the policemen and Jack had disappeared, and Donna was on her own doorstep.

"Captain?" she looked around. Strange. Then she smiled – her first alien encounter. She looked at the wrist band the stranger had given her. On it were two strings of numbers. One of them looked like – could it be the time and date? Donna whipped out her mobile and checked the information at the top of the screen.

"Donna?" Her grandfather pulled the door open, looking baffled. "What are you doing out there? Come in sweetheart."

"Oh my God," Donna breathed, glancing between the phone and the wristband. Suddenly, she began to squeal and jump up and down. "Grandad! Grandad! I've got a _time__machine!__"_

.o.o.o.

Accompanied with bad dreams, good dreams, and surprising insights that could only be explained by Jenny's connection to her father, months passed and the girl grew like it was years flying by instead of weeks. Strangely – but at the same time, comfortingly – her mental capacity was keeping up with, even exceeding her physical growth. They gave up measuring her age by their standards, and decided to just categorise her with estimates.

Jenny was 'eight' when she lost her first tooth – though of course, she only had one night to show it off before the energy brought in a new one. She was 'ten' when she got her first pet: a German Shepard she called Brigadeer. She was 'sixteen' when Rose was finally called to try out the dimension canon, on the four-year anniversary of Bad Wolf Bay.

"The stars are going out across the parallels, Rose," Pete filled her in. "We've been tracking the situation for a few years now, and after Davis and Arista disappeared we looked into it more extensively. We believe that there is some sort of...reality bomb, if you will, or explosion of some sort, which is penetrating all the universes. Stars have started going out here, and if we can see that from Earth this bomb has already been going for too long. Proxima Centauri disappeared from last May, meaning it has really been gone for nearly six years. I don't know how much time we have left, but I don't like the sound of that."

"Me neither," Rose murmured, suddenly feeling sick about this whole thing. What if she got stuck over the other side, and her new Earth was swallowed up by the darkness and she never saw her family again?

"Which is why we need to send you back, Rose. He'll only listen to you – he'll only tear apart the veils between worlds for _you.__"_

"You want me to- to find the Doctor?" Rose was tearing up. This was too good to be true. As she watched Mickey and a team of scientists fiddle with knobs and levers nobody had explained to her, she prayed it wasn't just a dream.

"Yes, Rose. Find him, and bring him here to help us." Pete looked her right in the eye. "But remember: time is slower there. Well, behind. It is still spring there, not autumn. As far as we can tell, he may even be years behind you. He may not have left you yet. If he hasn't, you must not tell him, under any circumstances, what happens in his future. Do you understand that, Rose? He cannot know. This cannot change – you have to leave him before you try to come back."

Rose took a deep breath.

"I know. 'Sides, he'd get mad if I screwed up his universe after all the running around he does trying you keep it clean."

"Right," Pete said with a chuckle. He held out a set of straps which looked suspiciously like a trapeze harness with some lights and buttons stuck to it, and Rose fastened it around herself as quickly as she could, before she got cold feet and decided someone else should do it. Was she really ready to see him again? After all this while, she wasn't so sure. And if she did, would she be able to keep what she knew of his future a secret from him? Would she be able to keep Jenny's existence from him if time dictated that was the case?

"Rose, you ready for this?" Mickey asked.

Rose closed her eyes, and imagined the new new Doctor sticking his hand out, wiggling his fingers to get her to come along. How she put her hand in his, and they smiled at each other, and they knew from that moment that they now had a concrete relationship. And she felt warm, and calm, and ready.

"Yeah. Ready."

Lights flashed, machines buzzed, and the room around her began to spin.

"Good luck, Rose," she heard, before Pete's Torchwood had disappeared and been replaced by the London streetscape of 'Universe A.'

.o.o.o.

Donna experimented with the mysterious wristband as well as a completely non-scientific-minded person could manage. She had worked out that the top row of numbers was the time and date, and through twenty pounds worth of bus trips, that the second row of numbers were coordinates of some kind. They were not latitude and longitude. She didn't want to mess with that number though, in case she accidentally sent herself into space or spliced herself in the middle of a wall or something. When she found the Doctor, she would ask him about it.

Which is why she would always teleport home, from wherever she was. The coordinates it was set to left her practically standing on her doorstep, and the time and date ticked on as Earth time progressed. Donna hoped, though she knew it was unlikely to say the least, that the Doctor would pick up on one of her trips and come investigate. Until then, there was only one thing to do: keep searching for trouble.


	8. Friends

**AN ~ * slides in the door with this chapter in hand, waving it and shouting * BAM! How's that for soon! It's only been...one month and six days! * victory dance * Thanks so much for staying with me – didn't I tell you I'd update?**

**I'm in an outrageously good mood right now. Not sure why. But I'd like to use it to extend a hugegantic thanks for the subs, favourites and reviews to this story, and to cheer all my wonderful supporters – I love you guys!**

**Chapter 8 ~ Friends**

Jenny needed some time to think. There was a lot swirling around in her head, most of which she didn't understand. Her family had always been open with her, and she had believed them in the face of the rest of the world that she was part Time Lord, a noble alien race, and that her mother and grandma actually came from a parallel universe. She didn't doubt that, no matter how crazy it should have sounded, but she was beginning to feel the impact of being so alienated from the humans around her.

Because of her rapid growth, she hadn't been allowed to go to school; she would've excelled a grade a day at first! Even now, with her growth rate having slowed almost to the rate of a normal human her age, she found it difficult to fit in having missed out on the important social lessons school provided. She hadn't been able to get a job either; she couldn't compile much of a resumé, and it seemed one couldn't even be a waitress these days without a certificate in hospitality.

In this stormy state of mind, she had decided to take to the park. She liked running; it cleared her head, and the pump of adrenalin made it easier for the human side of her brain to keep up with the Time-Lord side.

_You're smart, _she assured herself, _and organised, and enthusiastic. Someone is going to employ you. The gate to the human world is not closed to you._

"Heads up!"

Jenny spun around, not sure what the cry meant. She was startled to find a soccer ball flying at her face. With barely a second thought she jumped, spun, and kicked it back the way it had come. The team of teenagers who had followed it stared in awe as it sailed over their heads, flying in a graceful arch right into the arms of a muscular young man with tousled black hair who, judging by his manner and the way the others parted for him, was the captain of the team.

"Nice kick," he praised with a smirk. "I'm Ty Johnson. Wanna join?"

"Sure!" Jenny's heart raced. She smiled, beyond euphoric at the invitation. "Um...I'm Jenny, by the way."

"All right!" Ty turned around and flung the soccer ball over his head, sending the wheels of the game back in motion. Jenny gleefully raced after her friends.

.o.o.o.

After she found her bearings, Rose immediately headed to the nearest train station. She filled the morning with as many commutes as she could afford, listening to gossip and reading newspapers over people's shoulders, trying to locate possible alien activity, where she hoped to find the Doctor. She had a light lunch – wolfing down a sandwich in the middle of town as she sprinted between bus-stops – and then walked the streets of the suburbs; spying on cafes, checking out magazines and local-activity pin-up boards at community centres and even watching the news that was playing on a television at the front of an electronics store. Nothing. Bloody nothing.

When evening fell she was running through the streets of Ealing, finally on the trail of something promising. Suddenly, running foolishly in the middle of the road at an intersection, she was almost run over by none other than Sarah-Jane Smith: journalist extraordinaire and former companion to the Doctor himself.

"Rose, isn't it?" Sarah-Jane asked, as Rose backed away from the car insisting she was fine.

"Yeah, I know, been a while hasn't it?" she said, trying to stay casual and not look as panicked as she felt. The sun was setting, and she could see a few stars appearing in the sky. She hoped that, in a few minutes, they would _all _be there, but standing here talking to Ms Smith wasn't going to help with that.

Hang on...it just might. She slowed down.

"Are you looking for something?" Sarah-Jane called, edging the car after Rose. "Or perhaps I should say...someone?"

Rose stopped in her tracks.

"Can you help me find him? It's very, very important."

Sarah-Jane sighed humourously and leaned over to push the passenger-seat door open for Rose.

"It always is, with that man," she murmured, smiling as she started the car.

"It's about the stars. The stars are going out."

Sarah-Jane tossed her mobile to Rose.

"Call Home," she said. "Tell Luke to set up the guest room. We're hunting for the Doctor."

Then she accelerated so hard the phone nearly flew out the window.

.o.o.o.

"Don't worry guys, I've got it," Jenny said with a smile, taking a few notes from her pocket to cover the group's dinner.

Throughout the day, the soccer team had slowly disintegrated. Now evening had fallen and only Jenny, Ty, Amber – a girl with bronze locks that seemed to fall graciously despite the day's activities – and Josh, Amber's tall and slightly gangly blond brother, remained. They had dropped into a booth for pizza, which had been eagerly devoured by the hungry group: only a few shreds of pineapple and cheese remained on the two cardboard boxes before them.

"I thought you said you didn't have a job," Amber commented, scoffing at the ease with which Jenny seemed to find money.

"I don't. My uncle's Pete Tyler. We're close." The little lie fell easily off her tongue; according to the rest of the world, she was seventeen, which meant Pete wasn't old enough to be her grandfather. 'Uncle' was the first thing she thought of. She made a note to remember what she had told them: it's not as if she'd had the opportunity to lie to anyone about her family before.

"Kidding!" Ty cried. "As in _the _Pete Tyler? Why are you even _looking _for a job?"

"He's not _that _rich," Jenny insisted. "Especially since he funded this thing for Torchwood."

Silence around the table. Three jaws dropped.

"Torchwood?" Josh repeated. "Your uncle works for _Torchwood?"_

"Yeah. My mum too. I wanna work there but I'm not allowed until I'm eighteen."

"That is so cool." Amber leant across the table conspiratorially and whispered; "do you think you can get us in?"

"I dunno..."

"Come on, _pleeeease?" _Amber leaned in even closer. Ty put his arm across Jenny as if to defend her, and kicked Amber under the table.

"Don't get her in trouble, Amber, she's only just met us."

Amber pouted, but sat back. Jenny began to panic; just how bad had she messed up?

"I could try," Jenny decided.

"Nah, Jen, it's cool if you don't want to," Amber assured her, pout disappearing instantly as she back-pedalled: it hadn't taken her all day to figure out Jenny was a little strange and somewhat socially insecure.

"No, really," Jenny insisted. "Mum's doing this project thing and Pete and Mickey are there all the time – I think it'd be cool if I went to see them. I'm sure they wouldn't mind me bringing a few friends."

"Yes!" Amber cheered, high-fiving her brother. Josh just smiled, but this represented the same level of excitement his sister was expressing in her barely restrained dance of joy. Ty rolled his eyes at his crazy friends, and slid out of the booth to make way for Jenny.

"Let's go see Torchwood," she announced, leading the way.


	9. Discovered

**AN ~ hello again guys! Long AN today; sorry! You can skip it if you want.**

**Firstly: I feel inclined to apologise as it's taking me longer than I had initially planned to get them to meet but I really don't want to rush this story and I have quite a lot of plot and character development to do so these chapters are truly not wasted. Your readership is very important to me and I appreciate you sticking with me. I hope it's not tedious.**

**Secondly: this one is kind of a 'part one' to chapter 10 and in order to get it right I ended up having to write 9, 10, 11 and a bit of 12 – which means I will be able to post some during the school term when I don't have much time to write! Yay! (That is, if I can wait that long XD). Since chapter 10 is kind of 'part 2' I will be posting it within a few days of this one but 11 and 12 will be a bit further apart. I can't go spoiling you! (though some nice reviews may pursuade me...XD)**

**Chapter Nine ~ Discovered**

"I'm afraid the guest room is somewhat less inviting than it has been," Sarah-Jane apologised as she and Rose entered 13 Bannerman Road. Sarah-Jane dropped her keys into a bowl by the door and Rose looked round, wondering if she was now safe to take off the jacket concealing the bizarre dimension-canon harness.

"We're home K9!" Sarah-Jane called.

"Greetings, Mistress." A cheerful, polite, automated and slightly squeaky voice preceded its owner only by a few moments as a stubby robot dog wheeled into the room.

"K9!" Rose cried gladly, a smile breaking out on her face. "He's all fixed!"

"Greetings, Young Mistress. Master repaired me," K9 informed her. Rose scratched the tin dog's head as though he were flesh and fur, and though he made no outward signal of receiving her affection, she somehow felt that he had. There was just something about that dog.

"Where's Luke?" Sarah-Jane interrupted. K9 rotated.

"He is in his bedroom, Mistress. He is communicating with UNIT on the matter of stars."

"Yes, the stars," Sarah-Jane murmured, as if she had momentarily forgotten the primary reason for Rose's presence. Suddenly – and yet, as smoothly as if this had been her plan all along – she scaled the staircase, skipping two or three steps at once.

"Mister Smith, I need you!"

Stunned, Rose looked to K9.

"When she'd get married?"

"Mistress is not married. She refers to a computer. It is a humorous but not uncommon misconception amongst visitors."

"Right."

No longer left wondering about Sarah-Jane's self-confessed reputation as "that bonkers old lady from number 13," Rose hurried upstairs after the surprisingly spritely woman.

.o.o.o.

"That. Was. _Brilliant!" _Donna cried, leaning on the railing and throwing her head back in exhilaration. The Doctor shook his head pitifully as he strolled around the console, but in truth he was enjoying Donna's excitement and happiness. She seemed so different to the woman who had shown up in his TARDIS console on her wedding day – and yet, so similar.

"You were _flirting. _With _Cleopatra! _Ha! Like she'd ever be interested in _you!" _Donna cackled.

"Hey!" The Doctor frowned.

"Oh, puh_-leze." _

The Doctor examined himself; tall, pale, and frankly pretty weedy. To be fair, not exactly the poster boy for Ancient Egyptian warriors. He shrugged, conceding Donna's point, and she laughed again, though kinder this time, as she skittered up to the console. Almost immediately, her attention was grabbed by two rows of numbers on one of the panels.

15172208-45

160103711582

"What?"

The Doctor leaned across from the next panel over, studying the coordinates with a frown, puzzled over Donna's sudden hesitation. Without acknowledging his obvious predicament, Donna headed for her bags, which were now shoved to one side of the console with some semblance of order. She picked through them until she found the one she was after, then dug through that until she found the oversized wrist-watch given to her one strange afternoon in the London underground, being chased by a giant alien mole.

Before she could ask, the Doctor's face slackened. He stared at the device with a mixture of emotion: shock, confusion, anger, fondness.

"What?" Donna demanded, puzzled as to how the small object could issue such a strange response.

"Where did _you _get _that?"_

.o.o.o.

Rose came to a halt, utterly bewildered, the second she set eyes on the computer K9 had undoubtedly been referring to. 'Mr Smith' was an enormous contraption: a screen so large Rose could not have touched her fingertips to either end simultaneously, a control panel below that, and what appeared to be speakers or some such protruding from either side. The whole thing seemed to have emerged from the wall.

"Close your mouth," Sarah-Jane advised brusquely. "It's a terrible spring for the flying insects."

Rose, unaware that she had been gaping so pathetically, quickly shut her mouth. She tried to say something in recovery, but Mr Smith spoke first.

"Sarah-Jane." His voice was courteous, like K9's, but deeper, smoother, and more sophisticated. "Are you aware that Rose Tyler has brought a piece of unidentified alien technology into the house?"

Sarah-Jane whipped round on her heels, and Rose unzipped her jacket, revealing the harness Pete had given her, with its flashing lights and little red button. Though she was looking at Sarah-Jane, Rose considered the awesome presence of Mr Smith and suddenly, travelling between universes in cotton-nylon-lychre-blend straps with plastic buckles seemed like a really stupid idea.

"It's how I got here," she explained.

"What do you mean?" Rose was looking for the Doctor, so Sarah-Jane figured the TARDIS had not been the young woman's primary mode of transport, but she would have thought a bus would have sufficed. Or perhaps a train or hired car, given the Doctor's landing accuracy. But this..?

"How long has it been since you saw me last?" Rose asked.

"Would you like some tea?" Sarah-Jane offered. "I think it best if you start from the beginning, and I have a feeling this will be a long story."


	10. Trouble

**AN ~ Hey guys! Sorry, I meant to post this one earlier (seeing as it's kind of a part 2 to the last chap) but stuff got in the way. (Cue Canton: "Stuff does that.") but nevermind, it's here now! I'll try not to kill you with the gap between this chap and the next!**

**Chapter Ten ~ Trouble**

The Doctor whipped out his Brainy Specs and cupped his hands together. Obligingly, Donna tossed him the wristband. She sauntered after it, recounting the story, as the Doctor poked and prodded with his Sonic Screwdriver.

"I was looking for you," she explained. "And then one day I was being chased – by an _actual alien_, right_ –_ and this American hot-shot pops up outta nowhere, saves the day, slaps this on my wrist and tells me to think of home."

"Aaaah!" The Doctor sighed, lapsing into chuckles, amused by the fact that Donna could even have possibly believed thinking of home had sent her there. Suddenly he stopped, realising how condescending he sounded. Rose would have told him off.

"Sorry, was I being rude again?"

"Hm?"

"Never mind."

The Doctor instead strode back around the console to where the scanner screen awaited further instructions.

"Call Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood," he commanded. Donna's eyes widened as the screen responded to his words with its own:

_Calling...Torchwood..._

"Doctorrrr!" Captain Jack greeted with a grin and a flourish of his hands to present himself. "And who is the lovely lady? It's Donna Noble!"

Donna opened her mouth to respond, and the Doctor held up one finger without even looking.

"Don't," he warned, restraining a grin at Jack's antics like a parent trying to scold a naughty but amusing child. Jack gave an exaggerated sigh and flopped back in his chair, putting his feet up on the desk that the camera was apparently sitting on.

"So if you aren't setting me up on a date, and you're not asking me out, and the world's not ending...to what do I owe this pleasure?" He picked up a Rubik's cube and began to twist away, watching the Doctor for a reply.

The Doctor held up the wrist band.

"Oh yeah...sorry about that."

"What?" Donna interrupted. "Why? What's the big deal?"

"It's a Vortex Manipulator," the Doctor explained briefly. "A crude _and dangerous_ contraption which allows the wearer to transport themselves to different spaces and times using the-"

He cut himself off, and slowly turned to face Donna properly.

"The coordinates. That's why you were surprised when you saw them on the TARDIS – oh!" The Doctor slapped himself in the forehead. His voice went a little squeaky like it did when he was excited, and his audience just watched, bewildered, as words flew from his lips at 90 miles an hour. "You've used this haven't you! Over and over to go home because you figured that's what the numbers meant and you didn't want to change them in case you were wrong but you kept it until you met me again so I could tell you what it was. Very clever, clever Donna, you _wanted_ me to find you!"

"So ya saw me then?"

"Course I did."

"Didn't wanna come investigate?" 

"Nope. I figured it was Jack being an idiot again. Which by the way, it kind of was." He turned back to the screen. "Firstly, you can't go handing this stuff out to random humans. Secondly, you shouldn't be using it in the first place and thirdly, unless you want to be paying Torchwood back for _another _Vortex Manipulator, I suggest you come pick it up."

"Yes sir."

Jack saluted him, just to annoy him, and then ended his side of the call.

.o.o.o

Jenny studied the doors around them, trying to act as though she'd been here before. It's not like she'd never been to Torchwood, but this was something else. This was like...the inner sanctum. It gave her chills.

"This. Is. _Wicked," _Ty declared under his breath, awed at even being in the building. They were in an empty hallway, lights dimmed. Jenny relaxed a little more, content with their improbability of getting caught.

"Where to first?" Amber asked, squeaky with excitement.

_Lab 1. Lab 2. Weapon Development. Weapon Trial, _ Jenny read on each door as she turned slowly in a circle. _Tech storage. Maintenance._

"What was that?" Amber covered her mouth with both hands. All four froze, suddenly that much less confident as footsteps echoed from somewhere out of sight.

"Are you sure we're allowed to be in here?" Josh asked, his voice hushed.

"Oh my God! You snuck us in didn't you?" Amber gasped."We're going to get arrested, aren't we?"

"No!" Jenny objected. "In here, quick!" She pulled a door open and the three others crowded past her without question. They waited by the door for a long minute, listening, but when nobody came, they loosened up with sighs of relief all round.

"Where _are_ we?" Amber asked, her tone still hushed.

Jenny smiled and casually took a glance over the room, trying to buy some time to answer that question. In truth, she had no idea. She hadn't even looked at the label on this door. It was just the nearest one to her.

The room was quite small, and of strange proportions, as if someone had stretched it out sideways a little too far. It was empty, except for one table on either side of the door they had just come through. On each table lay three rather large, matching, strange-looking guns.

"Cool," Ty murmured, nodding in approval as he contemplating picking one of them up.

As soon as his finger touched one, the lights went down. The guns lit up, each emitting one strange white-purple light from the front, near the end of the muzzle, and another from the back. The four teenagers simultaneously lunged for the door. Jenny reached it first, and found it locked.

_Oh no._

Suddenly, the back wall exploded, covering them all in fragments and brick dust. While the others tried to clean themselves up, Jenny stared at the broken wall. She could barely see the outline of the hole in this darkness, but she could hear something emerging from it. It sounded like...wheels?

Then she heard its voice. The voice of her nightmares.

"_Exterminate...Exterminate..."_


	11. Consequences

**AN ~ hello again guys! In celebration of me finishing my maths homework (for now at least) and of my computer – which got a virus last week – returning my stuff to me! Phew, I thought I'd have to write this chap all over again, and it was hard enough as it is! **

**ps – I SWEAR to you that they're meeting soon! Cross my hearts.**

**Chapter Eleven ~ Consequences**

"Under that table – now!" Jenny barked, snatching Ty's gun and cocking it. Her heart thudded, getting faster and faster, demanding that she run away from the danger. But there was nowhere left: the door was locked, the room tiny and the Dalek advancing, betrayed by its metal casing reflecting what little light there was. She was surprised she was even still alive. Her legs held strong, but her finger would not pull the trigger; it was as if her very joints were jammed with panic.

"What the hell is that?" Amber demanded, crouched under the table already and covering her head with her hands for good measure.

"It's a Dalek," Jenny explained. "They're aliens. They kill."

A laser burnt the concrete just beside Josh's foot as he tried to fit under the same table as Ty and Amber. In response, Jenny's finger twitched. A single shot flew at the Dalek – a laser-bullet that matched the white-purple light the gun was emitting. It went wide, skimming uselessly off the metal hull, but she now had its attention. Slowly, breaths shaking, she sidestepped away from her friends. The Dalek's singular eye slowly followed her, and when she stopped, in the corner, its body rotated too.

"_You are scaaaared," _it noted in its chilling voice. _"You are not a waaarior."_

Jenny agreed. She sprinted for the nearest hiding place - the hole in the wall - but stumbled over a loose brick and fell to the floor. Panicking, she scrambled backwards towards the the hole, trying at the same time to keep her gun aimed at the Dalek as it continued its slow, menacing approach.

Suddenly, there was a great _crash! _from the opposite side of the room._  
_

Both Jenny and the Dalek turned their attention to the sound, where Ty, Josh and Amber had each grabbed a gun and tipped over the table to hide behind. Ty fired a shot directly at the Dalek's eye, and with a small _crack _it was torn off the hemispherical head and clattered to the floor.

"_I am bliiiiind!" _The Dalek wailed, both arms rotating randomly as if trying to guess where they were. _"Exterminate! Exterminate!"_

It began to fire randomly, its whole body spinning around, sending lasers flying left, right, high, low. The lasers left scorch marks wherever they touched the other three walls, but when they hit the wall opposite the door, brick dust and shrapnel exploded. Jenny shrieked and all but threw herself behind what was left of that brick wall in the hope of getting some time to think.

Jenny propped herself against the wall, panting hard. This room – or more accurately, this side of the room which had formerly been split by the brick wall – was much deeper than the one the Dalek was now in: easily the size of a warehouse. Around it were scattered more segments of walls, wooden barricades, and even a heap of sandbags. At the opposite end, Jenny could see a door with a tiny green light above the handle: it was unlocked.

""Yes!" she cheered. "Guys, get in here!"

"Can't!" Josh yelled back, firing a few desperate shots at the Dalek. Jenny peeked out of the makeshift doorway and saw that the Dalek had stopped firing randomly and was now seeking them out. The table behind which Josh, Ty and Amber were still hiding had a few scorch marks, and it was smouldering. Jenny gaped: one shot and all three of her friends would either be dead, or covered in molten plastic and metal, burnt beyond recovery.

_Plan. I need a plan._

Nobody on the other side was shooting at all any more. Ty, Josh and Amber crouched behind the table, and the Dalek slowly crept towards them, using any sounds they did make to pinpoint their location.

"_You will surrennnder," _the Dalek ordered.

Daleks never ask for surrender.

Suddenly, Jenny's head was filled with Daleks. Bullets flew at them but never hit. Mines, lasers, particle guns...all had little or no effect. It took a heavy-duty gun or grenade at close range to take out a Dalek. The one they were fighting was covered in scorch marks from their lasers – a few of the hemispheres on the hull were even melting. So either Torchwood left new, extremely powerful guns lying around in what was apparently a very low-security area _and _the Daleks had changed tack, or this wasn't a real Dalek.

At the very least, it sure as hell didn't have a protective forcefield like usual, and that was all Jenny needed: one good zap and it would probably blow.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She listened to her heart, almost thrumming in her chest, and felt the tingle of adrenalin right down to her fingertips. Her Time Lord mind raced, remembering everything, zooming in, highlighting, listening.

There was a gutter around her half of the room where the ceiling met the walls – come to think of it, it was probably in the other side too and she just hadn't noticed. She thought back: yes, it was. There was an unlocked door in front of her. There were two labs not far down the hall; she could get water there. If she timed it right...

"LOOKATMEI'MATARGET!" she yelled, sprinting back into the front half of the room. She fired several times at the Dalek, and then at the wall behind her, sending bricks flying. The Dalek lost track of its potential victims in the commotion and turned towards the sound. Jenny crawled over to the table.

"Holy crap. You _so _owe us icecream after this," Amber commented, panting. "Or bikes. Or mansions."

"I've got a plan. I'm going to knock over the other table when I get up. Amber, Josh - you guys use it or split up or whatever and cover me. Me and Ty are going to the lab to get buckets of water and chuck it on the Dalek. When we do that – the _instant _we're clear – I need you to blast those gutters and stick the cords in the water."

"We'll have to pull the cords from their brackets. They'll resist, so pull a hundred times stronger than you think you need to," Josh advised his sister.

"Right." Amber nodded.

"You ready for this?" Jenny briefly locked eyes with each of the faces surrounding her. "Three, two, one."

She and Ty leapt up, knocking the second table onto its side and tearing for whatever gap in the wall they could reach the fastest. The Dalek, preoccupied by Josh and Amber's fire, let them go. They tore through the second room, burst through the door, sprinted back around the corner to where they had first heard the footsteps, smashed through the door of Lab 1, filled up a huge bucket each and sprinted back as fast as they could, water sloshing all over the place.

In unspoken unity, they emptied the water onto the Dalek and leapt back. Josh and Amber, right on cue, ripped the cords out of the wall and tossed the ends into the centre of the room. Sparks flew and there were several very loud cracks and pops. And then silence.

The door they had initially entered made a tiny click, and then – too scarred to stay standing – fell off its hinges and collapsed into the room with a tinny, crackling _thud. _Jenny wasn't sure whether to be relieved or distressed even further when she read the room's label: _Simulations._

She highly doubted tearing the electrics out of the wall was a valid Sim move, but at this point, it seemed a minor discrepancy. Unfortunately, she doubted Pete and Mickey would see it that way. She was _so _busted.

To make matters worse, her head was spinning after that last Time Lord trick and she desperately needed to tone it down before she fell over. She took a deep breath, trying to drain the adrenalin from her system.

"All right everyone?" Ty asked.

"Yeah," Amber replied, surprised by this. She rolled her shoulders, pumped. Jenny nodded, still waiting for the adrenalin to seep away.

"Guys, we're in trouble," Josh muttered from the doorway. He stepped back as a grim-faced Pete Tyler stepped in. Pete glanced over the room, studying the damage, and when his eyes fell on Jenny's face they darkened with disappointment.

"I'm sorry," she said, bravely keeping her chin held high though tears of shame glistened in her eyes. "It's not their fault, it's mine."

"All the power in this building has shut down," Pete said, as though there were consequences of this she had not already thought of. Jenny hesitated, confused but worried by his tone. What was going on?

"The Dimension project didn't restart when the backups came online. The blackout blew some of the circuitry."

Jenny struggled for words. Was he serious, or was this some kind of trick to make sure she'd learned her lesson? His face remained solemn despite her horror, and after a moment it sunk in that he was telling the truth. What had she done? What if she never saw her mother again? What if Rose was trapped forever?

"The emergency default should bring her back," Pete added, in no kinder a tone. "But she's going to want to talk to you. Follow me to the office – all of you. We'll deal with you once we've looked after Rose."

Passing a judging eye over all four teenagers, Pete Tyler turned and left the room.


	12. Storm

**AN ~ Sorry it's been so long! I started this MONTHS ago (not even kidding) but haven't had a chance to finish it until now. Good news is, I've also finished the next chapter, and because I've kept you all waiting so long, I swear on my life you will have chapter 13 within the next two weeks; probably even in the next few days! Yay! Unless you don't want it yet; I can spread it out if you want, just lmk.**

**Chapter Twelve ~ Storm**

Rose Tyler was ripped out of Sarah-Jane's living room with all the violence of someone being riddled with bullets. She hit the concrete floor of the Dimension room in Parallel Torchwood with a thud, all the air crushed out of her. The room spun and swayed around her, one way and then the other like a ship being tossed on the seas. Mr Smith's voice echoed in her wringing ears.

"_Calling: The Doctor_."

The Doctor. The Doctor.

"Can you see me? Oi Rose. Can you hear me?"

Something cold on her face. Rose felt the weight of the world again. She took a deep breath.

"Mickey?" she groaned, trying to sit up. She blinked a few times and his face came into focus. He had one arm under her back, supporting her; the other pressed a plastic cup of water to her lips. Rose drank, drowsily, and waited to get her breath back before haphazardly standing. Mickey backed off a little, watching closely for any sign she might collapse.

Rose limped a few strides and stared at the Dimension Canon control panel: sparks popped here and there, panels had been ripped out of place and the plastic coating on some wires melted off. The central monitor flickered like a dying candle.

She spun back around to Mickey, jabbing a finger at the wreck behind her.

"What in Raxicoricofallipatorius happened here?" Tears stung her eyes, disappointment and frustration fuelling her fury. "We were calling him, Mickey – we were _this close."_

"'Snot my fault," Mickey objected, though he tried not to take offence. He knew she wasn't really mad at him.

"Well whose is it then?"

"Found 'em!" Pete Tyler declared, throwing open the doors and leading inside four miserable looking teenagers.

The second Jenny saw her mother standing there, she sprinted from the line, tears of shame and relief slipping down her cheeks. She threw her arms around Rose in a desperate hug, nearly knocking the poor thing off her feet.

"Jenny, what's going on?" Rose wondered. "Who are these people? Are you okay?"

Jenny leapt away from Rose, only now remembering how weird this must look to her new friends. As she had expected, Ty, Amber and Josh were staring, bewildered, at the scene before them. Amber's jaw hung like a rusty gate. Jenny laughed uncomfortably.

"Uh, Mum? This is Tyler Johnson, and Josh and Amber Stacey. They're my friends. Ty, Josh, Amber – this is my Mum."

Blink.

"Explain?" Ty requested, his voice a little strangled by shock.

"Now's not the time, Jen," Mickey advised.

"No, now's the perfect time," Rose snarled. Jenny and Mickey jumped, surprised at her unusual aggression. Pacing with an agitated step and strong gestures, Rose continued to rage to no-one in particular. "This girl is the daughter of a Time Lord: an alien from the universe I came from. When I was pregnant, we were separated and I was stuck here. Until yesterday, when I was sent to find the Doctor. I thought I had – I almost had – but suddenly I was back here. Because o' this. Because o' you."

"I'm sorry, Mum," Jenny choked, only just managing to keep her tone steady against her tears. Her face was bright red, she was so flustered, but she was trying. "I was only trying to make friends. It was stupid but it was...fun."

"Friends?" Rose raised her eyebrow, rage evolving into caustic, sarcastic surprise. "You think _now _is a good time to make friends? The Universe. Is falling. Apart. All the universes. And now the only chance we have is destroyed. It took us your whole life to build that, Jenny, did you know?"

"Hey, Rose," Mickey stepped forward, shielding Jenny. Jenny stepped back, hurt and lost. What could she say to this? She had no idea what was going on. All she'd done was pull some wires; how was she supposed to know they were even connected to the rest of the building, let alone the Dimension project?

When Pete joined Mickey in defence of Jenny, Rose growled through her teeth and stormed out of the room. The others stared after her until the door clicked closed again, and then Jenny turned to her friends.

"I'm so sorry," she began. Before she could get another word out, Amber had her arms around Jenny so tight, Jenny could scarcely move.

"I know it sounds crazy," she said, "but I believe it."

"Yeah, me too," Josh agreed. "To be honest, it explains a lot."

"You- you still want to hang out with me?"

"Are you kidding?" Ty put an arm around Jenny's shoulders as Amber slipped away. "It's not every day you have an alien for a buddy." He fluffed her hair with a fist and she batted him away, pretending to be annoyed though she couldn't help her smile.

"Hey Mickey," Pete called, gaining the attention of everyone in the room, though he didn't seem to realise this. He was holding a phone away from his ear, covering the earpiece as he spoke to Mickey. "It's Eliot Lynch from Personell. He wants Jenny."

"Then watcha talkin' to me for?" Mickey gestured to the awaiting teenagers, now gathered around Jenny. Pete cleared his throat to address them.

"It seems Captain Lynch liked your performance in the simulation room," he said. "Though he advises me it requires a lot of polishing, which brings me to my next and most important point: he would like to personally invite you – all four of you – to train to be Torchwood agents."

.o.o.o.

Sarah-Jane blinked drowsily, groaning. She had been thrown backwards so suddenly that she had simply passed out. As she lifted her face from the floor with stiff arms, she remembered the muscle-burning electric shock that had sent her flying – but nothing else. Who knew how long it had been since she landed here?

Not long, apparently, as at that moment Luke ran into the room.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "What happened?"

"Fine, fine," Sarah-Jane replied, shaking off the daze and patting debris off her jacket. When she glimpsed the rest of the room, however, she let the dust settle back on her clothes and stared in disconnected shock at the devastation. Most of the objects had been tossed into a heap at the back of the room by the bizarre storm that had snatched Rose away. Lonely papers and fragments of a chair littered the emptiest part of the room: to Sarah-Jane's horror, one of the chair's legs was stuck straight through Mr Smith's screen.

"S-Sarah?" A third voice joined the conversation. Mr Smith's ruptured screen flickered and a discoloured image came onto the screen: the Doctor, peering into his own video-communication unit. A bewildered red-headed woman stood behind him.

"Doctor," Sarah said at last, "it was Rose."

"What?" The Doctor raised both eyebrows, shocked.

"It was Rose, she was here. I don't know what happened but she just disappeared."

His expression fell, as if his very soul had just clouded over.

"What?" he repeated, gravity in his tone.

"You just missed her. I'm so sorry. For both of you – she was so looking forward to finding you."

"Yeah," he agreed, trying to fence the subject. His eyes flicked down, so Sarah-Jane could not be sure of his expression from her angle. "Did she tell you anything?"

"Yes. She told me about Jenny, and she told me the stars were going out."

The Doctor allowed a moment for this information to be processed, and then he looked up with resolve as well as pain in his eyes.

"UNIT headquarters, one hour."


	13. Mission

**AN ~ This chap's longer than usual but hey, I figure I owe it to you guys XD The Moment you have all been waiting for is getting REALLY close I SWEAR.**

**Meanwhile, please PLEASE for the sake of all Whovians, particularly those of us down here on Terra Australis, sign this petition to BRING DOCTOR WHO DOWN UNDER!**

**http:/www . change . org/petitions/british-broadcasting-company-bring-doctor-who-to-australia# (get rid of the spaces obviously)**

**Love, Australian Whovians**

**.o.o.o.**

**Chapter Thirteen ~ Mission**

Mickey tried to keep to a walk as he hurried through the Torchwood corridors after Rose. He was completely in two minds about this – was he on Rose's side, or Jenny's? - but if someone didn't catch Rose soon, who knows what she might do?

He burst out the door to find Rose rather anti-climatically sitting on the front step, hugging her legs, picking at a loose thread on the knee of her jeans.

"What the 'ell was that?" he blurted, without thinking about his words first. Rose turned her face towards him, jaw open, eyes wide in shock.

"You're takin' her side?"

"Yeah, I am! You were right 'orrible just now! D'you know how hard it is for her to make friends?"

"I guess not, but-"

"D'you have any _idea _what it might be like to have an alien dad who you've never met, and probably never will coz he's stuck in another _universe?"_

"No, but-"

"Can you even _imagine?"_

"No! But-"

"Her friends all believe her, by the way, and Lynch personally invited them all to join Torchwood. Just in case you wanted to congratulate her or anything."

"How dare you!" Rose stood up. "What, suddenly I'm a bad mother am I? I'm mad because that girl in there destroyed my only chance to see him again, and the fact that I'm _pissed off and crying _makes me a bad mother?"

"I don't think you're a bad Mum Rose, come on!" Mickey reasoned. "I understand you're wound up, but Jenny was really worried about you back there. There was no way of knowing what she'd done – least of all before she did it. I'm just asking you to have a little perspective and try to see it through someone else's eyes. You've invested way too much in the Dimension project, if you ask me. It was a long shot that it even worked; it could just as easily have shut down of its own accord."

"But it _didn't."_

"Yeah, well, next time we'll label the electrics with 'do not sabotage: you may be destroying an inter-universal experiment.'"

"You mean you _didn't?"_

"What part of _secret _did you not understand?"

Rose made a fist, and swung it wildly in Mickey's direction. He ducked, but she would not have hit him anyway. She roared with anguish, knowing that in truth there was noone to blame. Mickey was right. As her hand fell back to her side, now limp, Mickey gently wrapped his arms around her and let her cry into his chest.

.o.o.o.

Donna watched the Doctor fume at the controls, considering what to say to interrupt his vicious abuse of the TARDIS' buttons and levers. Her puzzlement wasn't for lack of questions – who was Sarah? What did she mean about the stars? What was UNIT? - but rather an invisible barrier that seemed to have appeared around the Doctor. One which jokes and banter, Donna's instinctive method of communication, would not break through.

"Who's Jenny?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor's shoulders deflated with a heavy sigh, and he turned to Donna with the darkest, saddest gaze she had ever seen.

"Do you remember what I told you about Rose?"

"Uhm...yes..." It wasn't much, though.

"Jenny is our daughter."

Donna's jaw dropped. Before she could properly process this information – thankfully for the Doctor, before the speel of questions in her mind reached her tongue – they landed. The Doctor flew at the doors, tore them open and sprung into the room with his usual energy, his heavy gaze only remembered by an edge to his gait and his words.

"Doctor!" Cheers arose outside. Donna crept towards the door, feeling very out of place all of a sudden. Aliens, fine. Ancient Rome, great. But friends of the Doctor? He was so amazing; no doubt they would be expecting her to be as great. It sounded so stupid but what if they didn't...like her?

"Sarah! Martha! This is Donna Noble!" The Doctor directed the attention of everyone in the room towards the TARDIS doors as Donna tried to covertly edge her way to the Doctor's side. Sarah – the woman from the video – and a younger woman with dark skin smiled, applauded and greeted the bewildered redhead as the Doctor introduced them.

"This is Martha Jones and Sarah-Jane Smith."

"They- They travelled with you?" Donna hoped she sounded more speculative than hopeful.

"Yep. Sarah was a while ago, too. "

"Can't get rid of 'em!"

The new arrival, none other than the notorious Captain Jack, meant it as a joke. Everyone in the room could tell. That's why the Doctor cleared his throat and changed the topic before things got too serious.

"The stars!" he prompted looking around for a computer of some sort and whipping out his Brainy Specs as he headed over to the nearest screen and – instead of waiting for Martha and her password – promptly hacked it with a wave of the sonic screwdriver.

"Earth is not close enough to the darkness to track it before it's too late, even with modified alien tech from Torchwood, so we've created a signal network to get the information through. We've been monitoring the stars with data received by stations on Melena 7, Saade and Messaline," Martha filled in, directing her speech at Donna as the Doctor, no doubt, had already discovered this in his rapid analysis of the last three years of records.

"It's gone! Why's it gone?" the Doctor muttered, whacking the back of the computer as if to make it cough up the missing statistics. Martha was already explaining.

"Melena Prima – that galaxy's sun – disappeared two months ago. We had to evacuate. We're setting up another station on Poosh, but it'll be-"

"Woah!"

The Doctor jumped back from the screen as a huge spike on the graph flashed before them.

"What was that?" Donna and Sarah-Jane asked at once.

"Messaline," the Doctor read out the graph's label.

"And we're current," Martha noted with a frown, reading over the Doctor's shoulder. Jack sidled up and examined the screen as well.

"It can't be their sun already." He shook his head. "The darkness hasn't travelled that fast before. It's constant."

With a glint in his eye that his companions had come to identify as _let's go and poke it with a stick, _the Doctor pulled a plug out of the back of the monitor, then picked up the hard-drive box of the computer and crossed the room to plug it into a bigger screen. He minimised the graph, still plunging up and down as it drew itself in the corner, and brought up a radar screen. Donna had grown quite used to feeling completely bewildered lately – in fact, she was beginning to wonder if she would ever wipe the expression off her face – but she was running out of words to fathom just how strange and wonderful this whole situation made her feel.

"That's Messaline, right?" she pointed to a green dot, proud to be keeping up. The blue dots must be other planets in the system, she figured, which meant the red dot they were orbiting around must be - "And that's the sun."

"Good, Donna!" The Doctor praised. Suddenly, the red dot flashed off the screen and back on again. Then off a moment later, and then two reappeared, overlapping slightly. The observers glanced at each other, eyebrows raised.

"Replay the graph," Sarah-Jane suggested. The Doctor waved his screwdriver, and the graph and radar screen switched places. The graph was a few seconds behind, so they all got to observe the spike on the records that coincided with the strange sun activity they had just observed on the radar. 

The Doctor turned to Martha and Jack, who were staring in complete awe at the screen above their heads.

"I take it that's not what it looks like when a star disappears."

"Not at all." Jack said.

"The graph should dip, not spike," Martha explained. "And there definitely shouldn't be two red dots."

"Hey, they're gone," Donna pointed out, frowning. "No wait, they're back."

The Doctor removed his Brainy Specs and slipped them into his pocket with an enthusiastic grin.

"To Messaline then!" He gestured to the TARDIS with his screwdriver before tucking that too inside his jacket pocket.

"We're going to investigate exploding suns?" Donna asked, near breathless, as Jack and Martha passed her, chatting like old friends.

"Yep."

"In deep space."

"Yep."

"With a time machine."

"Yep."

"I love my life!" With an excited squeal, she disappeared to the TARDIS. With a gentle smile after his latest assistant, the Doctor turned to face Sarah-Jane, who was talking on her mobile to Luke. Seeing his eyes on her, she hung up.

"Someone has to stay at home base," she reasoned, tears welling in her eyes though she was confident in her decision. "You keep out of trouble, okay?"

The Doctor embraced her and rested his chin on the top of her head for a moment before letting her go.

"Off you go then," she dismissed him, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "She's waiting for you. Don't make the same mistake."

"I won't."

.o.o.o.

Rose lifted her head off Mickey's lapel at long last, and wiped her eyes with the back of a hand.

"I'm sorry," she exhaled.

"It's okay. You just need to get your mind off things for a while. There's a training mission taking off tomorrow morning. Lynch'll want Jenny and her friends on it. Why don't we go too? Pete and the others can fix things back here and we'll try again when we get back."

"No, I don't want to leave."

"You won't be any good here. You don't know enough of the science and you won't be getting any sleep."

Rose blinked, unfazed.

"It's only a couple of months – three, maybe four. Come on Rose, it'll be good for you."

Rose frowned at him, a little irritated at how well her friend knew her, but appreciative of his concern. She sighed in surrender and let him pull her slowly back towards the door.


	14. Messaline

**AN ~ just finished exams yesterday, so today I polished up this chapter and the next one – SO excited to finally share them with you guys! Also, mustn't forget BloodyDeath11 and the trailer which comes much more strongly into play now that we've reached the part of the plot it covers – thanks for getting me inspired!**

**Chapter Fourteen ~ Messaline**

Sirens blared so loudly that the four inhabitants of the TARDIS – now all of them thrown flat against the console room floor but for their grips on the console handles – were contemplating letting go of the handles just to cover their ears, even though the TARDIS' bucking and jerking would surely see them black and blue and possibly concussed should they slip.

"What's going on?" Martha yelled at the Doctor.

"Don't know!" he yelled back. "Jack?" 

"No idea!" the American called.

Donna clenched her handle tighter, and shrieked with both terror and delight as the TARDIS dipped again and spun on through the Vortex.

In his head, the Doctor counted the voices. Four. That was important. There was something about-

_You will find her again when your number is four._

Could this be what it meant? Was the TARDIS taking him to Rose? It shouldn't be possible, but if the universe was big and strange and ridiculous enough...

_One you have met will not stay away. _Donna: before Martha, he had offered her to travel with him and she had turned it down. Or it could mean Jack – though his staying away had proven unlikely anyway.

_One now beside you will not for long stray._ Martha had been with him at the time, then had stopped travelling with him. She had come back. It was referring to her.

_They all will help you to find what you seek._

He shouldn't have dared hope, but he was not in his right mind. He'd have blamed the violent flight of the TARDIS if it was like this less often, but if he were being totally honest with himself, it was love and desperation addling his reason. Desperation to see her again...he so _wanted _to believe it was possible. Was it? Or was he just getting his hopes up?

"Doctor!" Donna shouted a warning, but it was too late: the Doctor had let his hands slip off the handle, and with the next swirl – almost a loop-the-loop – he was sent rolling head-over-heels down the stairs and into the doors. There was a moment of confusion and panic and headache before he righted himself and realised he was in fact outside the TARDIS. They had landed.

.o.o.o.

Ty, Amber, Josh and Jenny stood next to each other, squeezing hands with fear and excitement and anticipation as they watched the gangplank lower in front of them. They felt a rush of cool air; it was swampy, but breathable, as promised. After two weeks on a spaceship where spacesuits were only for emergencies and the food resembled nothing like toothpaste, they were used to their expectations of space travel being relatively primitive, but still, the number one rule of space was that the atmosphere was no longer breathable. Your head was supposed to explode with the pressure. And yet here they stood.

They stood so for a long moment, stunned, until Mickey clapped Jenny on the shoulders as he passed them, almost jogging down the ramp.

"Well, come on," he beckoned, slinging a gun over his shoulder as Rose passed him and broke out onto the planet's surface.

The four teenagers looked at each other, trying to decide who would go first, each wanting to do it themselves but at the same time daring the others to go ahead. All at once, they decided to run down together – they sprinted onto the surface and out from under the ship so that the sunlight, at long last, could reach their skin.

The mud beneath their feet was a dark grey-blue, and sludgy. There were no trees, only sharp, spinifex-like shrubs here and there. In the distance there were mountains – strangely shaped mountains, more like rock formations from the middle of a gorge or canyon. Their bases were shrouded in mist in an uncanny mimic of Earth's mountain ranges that sent shivers down the spines of the four teenagers standing on their first alien planet.

The ship that had dropped them off suddenly zoomed over their heads, making them jump and duck and gasp.

"Who's got the orb?" Jenny remembered, and was struck by panic for an instant: their objective was to terraform the planet, and to do that, they needed one of only six orbs the mothership had brought from Earth.

Rose swung the heavy orb case – shaped suspiciously like a miniature version of one of those hop-a-long toys with its little handle - to alleviate her daughter's fears. Jenny's face lit up and Rose couldn't help mimicking it: Jenny had her father's grin. Rose remembered the Dimension-canon incident and the swing in her step faltered for an instant. _Damn. _She was trying to get over it. She really was. Instead, she just felt guilty as well as mad.

"You okay?" Mickey asked.

"Yeah," she shrugged, trying not to sound too icy. The orb was heavier than her pack, and pulled her arm until her shoulder hurt – but at least that was at least something different to focus on as the four teenagers fell into formation behind Mickey and herself. They walked purposefully forward, but Mickey turned and walked backwards so that he could talk to the cadets – and hopefully distract them from Rose's edgy mood.

"Okay Team, so – what are we looking for in a terraforming site?"

Silence. A hesitant 'uhh' from Amber. Mickey raised an eyebrow: they had, after all, had a seminar in this on the ship before being deployed.

"Water," Josh suggested, getting the ball rolling. Mickey nodded.

"Some vegetation?" Amber put in – though by the looks of things there wasn't going to be much. Again, Mickey nodded: spiny though they were, those shrubs were evidence of the most inviting areas of soil, crucial for less durable vegetation to even have a chance.

"A sheltered place," Jenny offered.

"Where new growth will not be uprooted and young or sickly animals still trying to adapt will not be open to attack." Ty finished the quote, word for word from the seminar, and Jenny elbowed him. Mickey laughed.

"Okay, good, so-"

"Mickey." This time it was Rose. She had stopped. Before he could answer, Mickey walked straight into her. He remembered the Bad Wolf incident in her room and hurried to turn around, but this time her eyes were not gold. They were focused on what seemed to be a hatch in the ground a hundred or so metres away.

"Look," Rose insisted, already jogging over. The others hurried to follow as she knelt down, turned the handle like a giant, rusty tap, and lifted the hatch. Her spectators watched – Mickey with curiosity, the others purely stunned – as Rose leaned over and stuck her head into the tunnel below.

"It's a structure?" Rose was puzzled, but she couldn't deny the signs: the tunnel had panelled walling and lights. One of them flickered as if a fuse was damaged.

"Um, did you mean to sound...surprised?" Amber asked as Rose straightened and stood up.

"Yep," she confirmed. She didn't offer anything further, only glancing at Mickey and somehow, in that glance, ascertaining that they both realised the significance of the tunnel's presence. The four teenagers looked at each other, hoping one of them might know. It dawned on Jenny first.

"This planet is supposed to be uninhabited," she recalled. Mickey opened his mouth to comment, but an eerie rumble cut him off. He looked around for its source, and saw nothing: it was coming from under the ground.

"Who's up for an investigation?" Rose invited. Then she dropped down the manhole, giving the others no choice but to follow.

.o.o.o.

"Tunnels," the Doctor mused, hands in his pocket as he idled along, examining the panelled walling and the lights with his Brainy Specs, just to make him feel a bit clever as Martha read the statistics off a portable screen.

"These tunnels are only a year or so old," she informed them all, "but even that shouldn't be possible. When we built our base, the planet was uninhabited."

"Hmm..." the Doctor nodded. He ran his finger along the wall and examined the dust. "Well, Messaline's not supposed to be colonised until...oh, 4000 years from now? You lot sped it up a bit setting up your station here, but still-"

The rumbling came again, dislodging dust from the roof so that it rained down on their clothes. Donna, who had been studying the roof at that unfortunate moment, gagged and coughed the grey-blue dust. Jack laughed. Meanwhile, the Doctor had noticed something at the end of the corridor. At first he had thought the corridor turned off, but now he could see it was a door. He jogged towards it, trench coat flapping around his legs and tossing up a cloud of dust around him and his trailing companions.

There was no handle he could see, but the door itself was very obviously made of metal – some kind of steel alloy; elements from Earth - so he whipped out the Sonic to try and unlock it. It didn't work, so he enhanced the settings. Still nothing. He glared down at the Sonic, and flicked it against his hand as if that might knock something back into place.

"What about that?" Martha suggested, pointing to a cavity in the wall that looked like the cavity in a refrigerator door where you put the cup to get cold water or ice. The Doctor raised the Sonic again and zapped it, and it lit up blue.

"_DNA signature required," _informed a woman's voice, automated to be cheerful and welcome. With surroundings as grey and dreary as this, the Doctor could understand why. Plus, it was always comforting to have a kind voice next to a scary, Sonic-proof door. Unless it was a trap. Fastest way to tell? He rubbed his hands together and shook back his right sleeve.

"Here we go," he announced. There was a slightly crazed look in his eyes that made Donna, Martha and Jack glance at each other; not in concern or panic, but in anticipation._ Here he goes again!_

The Doctor stuck his hand into the blue hole in the wall. The blue light turned off, and there was silence. Then, suddenly, "YEAOW!"

The Doctor jumped, pulling his hand away and shaking it as if to flick off the sharp sting.

"_DNA signature accepted. Match found."_


	15. Reunion

**AN ~ OMG guys I am SO sorry! I meant to post this weeks ago, closer to the last chapter! Oh well, guess it's evidence I'm still alive, and gives you guys something of mine to read while I'm chasing my tail down here at school. Got some one-shots from challenges I'll hopefully post between now and my hols to keep you guys occupied :)**

**And of course, don't forget BloodyDeath11's trailer as it plays a much bigger role from here on in :)**

**Anyway, enjoy! Ttyl**

**Chapter Fifteen ~ Reunion**

Jenny exhaled, settling the tears of shock and pain that had welled up at the sting, and looked back up at the steel door in front of her: the whole thing was glowing blue now, like some giant alien MRI.

"What happened?" Rose demanded, darting over and all but grabbing Jenny's hand. There was a small red mark, like a burn, about three quarters of an inch long, on the back of it, but otherwise no change.

"It took a test," Ty suggested. "A DNA test."

"_Match found,_" Amber quoted the mechanical door-woman. "What did it mean? It's not -"

"No," Rose interrupted sternly...but wistfully. Still holding Jenny's hand, though loosely now, she turned her attention to the door. It was opening.

"_Jennifer Elizabeth Tyler," _the door-woman beckoned. Jenny stepped forward. Rose absently mirrored her daughter.

"Rose," Mickey hissed. "What if it's a trap? You can't just let her-"

Rose and Jenny simultaneously spun to face Mickey.

"But what if it's him?" Jenny asked. "I want to meet my father, Mickey."

Mickey started to say something, but cut himself off. With humourless eyes, he glanced between Rose and Jenny. Back to Rose. Why did he love her so much? Why didn't she love him back? What was it, exactly, about this Doctor that kept pulling her back? 

And if he was crossing the barrier between universes for her, for them...how could Mickey stand in the way?

He lifted the strap of the gun over his head and Jenny took it with a nod, acknowledging his acceptance of her choice. She let her pack slide to the ground behind her as the mysterious, exciting, dangerous blue light seemed to pull her towards it. She stepped up, into it, and heard Amber's intake of breath as she disappeared from their sight.

Suddenly, the urge to move forward disappeared. It was as though she had simply been dropped into thin air. She stood for a moment, and thought.

She was in a tunnel, surrounded in blue mist that she couldn't feel – not even as moisture in the air against her skin. Her legs were shaking. Her hands, one clenched tightly around each handle of Mickey's enormous gun, trembled. Even her lips quivered. She could always turn around. Go back to safety, to her family, to what she knew. Her body wanted her to do that, so powerfully that black spots appeared in her vision whenever she thought about moving forward.

Or maybe that was just her clenching her jaw too tight.

Jenny tuned out everything. She shut her eyes, shut out the fog and the thought of her friends and her quivering muscles. She listened only to the soft _thud-thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud-thud _in her chest. Two hearts. Just like him.

_Just like him._

She dropped her hands from the gun, pulled the strap over her head and let it fall to the ground at her feet. Then she stepped over it, confident and calm, because she knew what she would find.

.o.o.o.

"Something's happening," Martha announced, concern wavering her tone. The door was open in front of them, blue mist clouding out and dissipating before their shocked faces.

Donna and Martha stood next to each other, out of the direct path of whatever was coming. Jack's fingers brushed the handle of the pistol at his hip. The Doctor's fist clenched around his Sonic Screwdriver. He didn't usually react like this, even with the blue light and the rumbling, but he could feel something coming. Something major, and drastic, and world-changing.

It was a girl.

Seventeen, eighteen years old, he estimated. Blonde, fairly tall, lean. Human – no, humanoid. Two hearts.

_Two hearts._

When her eyes fell on his face – bewildered, enchanted, heart aching from all the joy and pain – a smile broke out on Jenny's face.

"Hello Dad."

Tears sprung to his eyes, and refused to let words leave his throat. Even if he could have spoken, what could he say? What words, in English or Ood or Old High Gallifreyan could possibly...?

"Oh, he gets around, doesn't he?" Martha's eyes were wide as she glanced between the shocked father and his confidently smirking daughter.

"Took the words," Donna agreed, smiling and nodding and staring.

Jack's hand fell away from his pistol as he laughed too. The Doctor's fingers loosened around the Sonic, and he laughed, breathlessly, and smiled as tears shone in his eyes. As the blue light faded and the last of the mist dissipated, the Doctor looked at his daughter, and she looked back at him, and they smiled at each other and heard their heartbeats, in unison.

"She's my daughter," he breathed. How long had it been? Had he really missed sixteen years of her life? Eighteen? Or more? If she had two hearts like him, could she regenerate? If so, had he missed...had he lost...

"I'm Jenny," the girl introduced with a smile. "She told me all about you."

"_Jenny?"_

A voice echoed through the tunnel. Footsteps.

"_Ev'ryffin okay? Jenny?"_

The Doctor squeezed his eyes tightly shut. If this was a dream, a hallucination, he wanted to wake up now. This was too cruel. It couldn't be her. That was too much.

"Dad," Jenny invited. "Open your eyes."

He wanted to open his eyes, he really did, but he had lost so much...he had lost her too many times. How could this be real?

"It's her," Martha breathed. "Oh my God, she found you."

The Doctor opened his eyes, and turned, and indeed, she was there. Her blonde hair was cut to hang by her cheekbones. Her face was serious, like she wanted to cry. Like she didn't believe this was real. She was so different now, it seemed. But she was still -

"Rose."

A smile broke her solemn expression, and his hearts almost burst out of his chest as she slowly stepped down from the threshold and crossed the floor. This time, Martha, Donna and Jack were silent.

Rose reached her arms up to hug him, to touch like she couldn't at the beach. Her fingers were inches away from that familiar jacket, her cheek hovering just above his lapel. She could feel his arms around her. His hands were shaking. So were hers.

Suddenly, the ground was shaking too; rumbling, roaring beneath their feet and all around them.

"ROSE!"

Mickey jumped out of the gateway, followed by three panicked teenagers, but dust, loosened from the roof and walls, rained down so thickly that for a moment, all anybody could do was find their own limbs. Whatever was making the noise, it was getting closer.

"Get to the TARDIS!" the Doctor bellowed over it all. He grabbed Rose's hand, solid and real, and she finally began to cry as he pulled her along behind him, as exhilarating and frightening and wonderful as ever.


	16. Interrupted

**AN ~ Wow! Finally! Sorry guys but I was having a huge time with a plot-knot I worked myself into with this story; don't worry, it's all sorted now! This means I've updated all my WIP fics at least once these hols – yay! Also, keep an eye out for a companion piece/sequel to 'Because They Will Be Sad' entitled 'Because You're Still Breathing.'**

**Because it's been a while (and thanks for prompting me to add it, A Who Down in Whoville) here's a quick summary ~**

**On the beach at Doomsday, Rose tells the Doctor she is pregnant before they are separated. She has a Bad Wolf experience in which she predicts Mickey's death. Parallel Torchwood experiments with the Dimension Canon, receiving incoherent messages from the Doctor's universe, and the stars are going out. Unfortunately, when Rose finally crosses the parallel, her daughter Jenny (who has rapidly grown to the 'age' of about 17) and her friends Ty, Amber and Josh accidentally destroy the Canon. While it is being repaired, Mickey, Rose and the four teens go on Torchwood's training mission to Messaline.**

**Meanwhile, a prophecy was fulfilled as the TARDIS, with the Doctor, Martha, Donna and Captain Jack on board, crash-land on their universe's Messaline: the parallels converge and the Doctor is reunited with his family.**

_Suddenly, the ground was shaking too; rumbling, roaring beneath their feet and all around them._

"_ROSE!"_

_Mickey jumped out of the gateway, followed by three panicked teenagers, but dust, loosened from the roof and walls, rained down so thickly that for a moment, all anybody could do was find their own limbs. Whatever was making the noise, it was getting closer._

"_Get to the TARDIS!" the Doctor bellowed over it all. He grabbed Rose's hand, solid and real, and she finally began to cry as he pulled her along behind him, as exhilarating and frightening and wonderful as ever. _

**Anyway, onwards! (I promise the next chapter will not take anywhere near this long)**

**Chapter Sixteen ~ Interrupted**

Martha, Donna, Jack, Jenny, Mickey and the three strangers hurtled into the TARDIS, and Rose flung the door shut, laughing breathlessly, as the Doctor dragged her onto the crowded console room floor. The sound of the falling dust and debris was muted as the TARDIS dematerialised and resurfaced somewhere else on the planet; in the lull, everyone took a moment to gather themselves together.

The Doctor stared at Rose, and she stared back, and all thoughts of Bad Wolf Bay melted in the warm orange glow of the TARDIS. _You're here. _He tried to say something, but all the words jumbled in his head and he couldn't decide which to let out first. Instead, he held out his arms, and in an instant she filled them, throwing her own arms around his neck as if they'd never have to part again. They closed their eyes, blocking out the others and savouring the sensation, until Amber screamed.

"A HAND!" She jumped away from the console, practically hyperventilating. "OH MY GOD! He's got a hand. Jenny. Your dad. Has a hand. In a jar. Oh...God..." Swallowing hard, gasping for a breath, then swallowing again and grabbing at Jenny's sleeve as if to throw the half-Time Lord in front of herself, she waved a finger in the general vicinity of the offending hand. It floated contentedly in bluish liquid in a cylindrical glass container below the console.

"Ew, you kept this?" Rose raised the container, and the Doctor's grin was perpetuated by how similar Jenny's facial expression was to her mother's at that moment. There were screwed-up noses all round – even Jack's cheek twitched - and Josh and Ty stepped away, joining Amber by the railing.

"It's my spare hand," the Doctor protested. "I like my hand, it's a very good hand. Never know when it might come in handy." He took the jar and put it back under the console at his feet. Rose laughed at his pout, and his hearts lifted: for a breathless moment they nearly lifted him off the ground.

Now that she had her breath back, and the hand was...let's just not think about the hand, Amber took another look at all the strange faces in the room. There was the lanky Doctor, with wide and glistening eyes, swaying with his hands in his pockets, not a care in this moment for anything but Rose. Beside him, a middle-aged woman with red hair chatted – rather loudly, quickly and with gestures – with another about Rose's age with dark skin and black hair thrown up into a pony tail, and a taller man with dark, messy hair, who almost instantly caught Amber's eye and flashed her a disarming smile. Josh and Ty shuffled closer to her on either side.

"So who _are _you guys?" Ty wondered, keeping an eye on the stranger who was trying to flirt with Amber.

"Cap'n Jack Harkness. Torchwood," he offered, unmistakably American, not dropping his cocky smirk as he shifted his eyes to Ty's face, but making it a little more decent: he'd never seriously hit on a girl as young as Amber, especially not judging by the facial expressions of her impromptu bodyguards. "You her brother?"

"No," Josh replied for Ty. "I am."

"Hm," the Doctor remarked, sidling around the console to them. "I think some introductions are in order. Hello, I'm the Doctor." He held out his hand – one still attached to his body – but Amber was reluctant. Ty took it instead.

"Call me Ty," he said. He was shaking the hand of an alien. _Wicked. _"This is Amber, and her brother Josh." Ty gestured over his shoulder with his head and the Doctor followed his gaze to the girl, who was slowly turning green.

"It's bigger on the inside," she breathed hoarsely. Ty and Josh seemed to shrink a little as it struck them too; they panned the room and looked up at the rafters, and those who had been on the TARDIS before – and Jenny, who had always known, from the stories and her mind and her gut what to expect - stopped their conversations to observe.

"Yeah..." The Doctor pressed his lips together: best just to let it all sink in. "She also travels in time and space."

"Okay." Amber nodded slowly, letting the barrage of weird slowly settle. Questions darted around her brain, all but splitting her skull; Jenny had a hell of a lot to answer for! But Amber recognised they probably didn't have time to deal with her right now. She'd be fine. _Deep breaths; one thing at a time._

"Excuse Captain Jack." Rose made a point of rolling her eyes at the Captain in full view of the teenagers, hoping to make them more comfortable. They laughed hesitantly and, satisfied, she continued around the circle, gesturing to each: "...And this is Donna, and Martha. They're some old friends of the Doctor."

At this, the Doctor, Jack, Martha and Donna frowned. They shared a glance with each other, and then turned to Rose.

"Sorry," Martha said, "I don't think we've ever met."

Rose opened her mouth to respond, and then realised what had just happened. She remembered that list of fragments from this universe that they had picked up over the Canon in its early stages, and how she had heard the voice say something about the Osterhagen Key when she was talking to that nurse. Martha Jones.

"Whaaaat is happening?" Amber asked, gripping the railing, glancing around the room for an answer that she would comprehend. "Everybody's got their 'something-weird's-happening' faces on again. I'm not sure I'm ready for any more of those faces!"

The Doctor held up one hand and leaned closer to Rose, beckoning some kind of explanation. The corners of her smile lowered, her glistening gaze hardening as she remembered her family – her father, most of all, and the solemnity in his face when he had granted her this mission. The Doctor found himself mimicking her, but inside he could still hear harps, and he begged her, silently, not to destroy this glorious hope he was floating on.

"Something's going wrong," she managed at last. "We're not sure what exactly, but-" It killed her to watch the sparkle begin to slowly drain from his eyes. Her heart, which had felt only moments ago like it was made of solid gold, began to turn to lead.

"The stars are going out," the Doctor and Donna finished at once. The Doctor pressed his lips together, humming as he thought it out. He reached for the console – reluctantly, anticipating a swing in emotion he really did not want to face just now - and dragged the scanner around, battering it until it was at a suitable height and angle. He pulled up some footage of the sun/suns/no sun, and Mickey's eyes widened.

"Mm?" The Doctor leaned towards him.

"The stars - they're goin' out in our universe too," he replied. "And in another one. Every universe, maybe."

"Every universe?" The Doctor frowned. He looked at Rose, who half-sat on the edge of the console, looking at her feet. He had warned her; travel between universes was extremely dangerous – both to her and the universe. Not to mention, extremely difficult: where had she gotten such technology? Surely Torchwood hadn't...

"Yeah..." Rose sighed. Drawing her eyes up to meet his face, she slid back onto the floor and slowly approached the Doctor, not knowing how he would react to her news, but knowing that any way it was, she wanted to hug it out of him and make them both feel better - she was finally _here, _with him; couldn't she revel in it just a while longer before the real world broke down the doors?

"They used the Dimension jumps," she told him. It wasn't hard to stay serious thinking of those. "Along with some other alien tech, Pete an' Mickey found a rift an' got to investigatin' it. Some weird stuff started comin' through...just words, names...so we worked some more on it, an' well, basically...we've been building this...Dimension Canon. So I could..."

_Do this. Be here. Talk to you. _She fought a smile. He saw the sparkle in her eye, and his joy rekindled.

"What?"

Both of them knew the answer:

"So I could come back."

The grins returned to both their faces, and he all but scooped her off the ground. He swung her around, brimming with energy, and didn't care about the laughter from his other companions as he kissed Rose when he set her back on her feet.

"God, Mum!" Jenny gagged, turning away and holding up her hands to block the sight.

"Jenny!" The Doctor cried, scatterbrain jumping from pleasure to pleasure. He wanted to sweep her off her feet too, but stopped at the last minute_. _They didn't know each other yet, and he had lived long enough to feel, as he stared at her, a crippling sense of what he had missed.

Mimicking her father, Jenny held her arms open in invitation. Slower than he had with Rose, the Doctor embraced her, and he relished the sound of another two hearts beating with his own. It had been so long..._so painfully long._

Jenny hugged her father back and her bewilderment bubbled into laughter. She felt more at home here than she ever thought she could have. They were on a time machine on a planet far from home – in a different universe, for her - and yet it just felt right.

Suddenly, she felt Mickey put a heavy hand on her shoulder; a warning. Had he heard something she hadn't? She let the Doctor go and turned to Mickey for an explanation, but he glared past her, at the Doctor. She could hear their voices, arguing, though their lips weren't moving and she couldn't figure out what they were saying.

The Doctor eyed Mickey as he moved away, and the voices in Jenny's head fell silent. She couldn't take her eyes off Mickey; her mother's best friend, who had been as much of a father, or at least what she imagined of one, to her as anyone. His eyes were steely as he watched the Doctor and Rose and the other companions chatter merrily away on the other side of the console, and Jenny wrapped her arms around her chest, fingernails digging into her own forearms. This was not going to be as comfortable a transition as she had hoped.

_Thud._

The room jumped to attention. The Doctor raised a finger above their heads to keep everyone silent as he edged between the visitors and down the stairs to the door.

"We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up."


	17. Arrested

**A/N ~ so much for posting this one close to the last one! Sorry guys, but at least it gave me something to post during term - if anyone asks, I'm doing History right now :) So excited for the new season! Seen the new trailer? Anyone know the date it starts in Australia?**

**Anyway, since it's been a while, last chapter...**

The roof of Messaline's tunnel started falling in; everyone fled to the TARDIS. Everyone got introduced, Rose and the Doctor hugged and kissed, and we established that the stars are going out. Mickey gets uncomfortable when Jenny hugs her father, and Jenny hears them arguing even though they aren't, and then -

"_We have you surrounded. Come out with your hands up."_

**Chapter Seventeen ~ Arrested**

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at the crowd of observers, and slipped out of the door with his hands raised. He looked up first, knowing he would have no choice but to look at the speaker once he had met their eyes.

They were in a huge, round, warehouse-like room, with rusty metal rafters – no, not rust; just a reddish steel alloy of some kind. He'd need his screwdriver to check it out , but he was quite confident it was from Earth. In the centre of the room, at the top, there was a hatch with a vault-handle, but the Doctor could not see any way of reaching it; it was easily five metres above his head. A crowd of humans – soldiers? - in dark green and khaki observed him with hard eyes. Each one had a large gun, and their leader - a pepper-haired sergeant with unusually grizzly grooming – had his raised and squared on the Doctor's chest.

"Hello." The Doctor pretended he wasn't fazed. He scratched an ear with one hand before returning into to its position of surrender. "This how you greet everyone, is it?"

"Cuff him," the leader growled to someone in the Doctor's periphery. The Doctor did not resist as a younger soldier pulled his arms down and pressed a button on the central block of the cuffs. With a _vworp, _two energy rings drew themselves around his wrists. The Doctor sighed.

"Little unnecessary, but I'll go with it." He pretended to be muttering to himself, but he knew they could hear him. More than anything, he was irritated he'd left his screwdriver in his front pocket.

"How many more're in there?" The leader demanded.

"In there?" The Doctor jerked his head at the TARDIS. "Just me. It's a small ship, you know."

"Open it."

Another two soldiers moved forward to get the door, and two more stood in front, weapons raised, ready to fire on sight.

"Nine!" The Doctor revised, lunging forward. It was worth a try; no more than that. The leader lowered his rifle slightly, and the four troops by the door hesitated.

"They'll come quietly," the Doctor assured the sergeant. "Don't hurt them. We came here by accident. We're no threat. Promise."

He kept his eyes locked on the sergeant's, and after a moment, the pepper-haired man growled and jerked his head towards the outside of the room. The soldiers retreated, and the Doctor let go his breath. He faced the TARDIS and watched the doors open, giving the occupants of the TARDIS a friendly face as they filed out, hands raised, into a ring of strangers.

Rose emerged last, and pulled the TARDIS door closed after herself. Her eyes scanned the room, and the crowd, and lingered on the Doctor, and then locked on the sergeant.

There was a drumming around the circle, and the Doctor looked at the roof and shook his head: make that a ring of loaded, cocked rifles. _Humans and guns – why?! _And then he realised.

Rose had a gun.

_Rose. _Had a gun. It was right there, easily as big as the soldiers', if not 1.5 times the size, on a strap around her neck. Her arms were draped over it so comfortably the Doctor felt like choking. His Rose could never fire that thing. Not at a person.

_But she hasn't raised it yet. _He took a breath, and held it, and backed off so he could watch proceedings from side on.

"Arrest her," the sergeant ordered.

"Parley," Rose spoke calmly, keeping her eyes steadily on the sergeant's face. She raised her hands above her head, and refused to let the soldier pull them down. There was strength in her voice this time: she raised her voice so that every person in the room could witness her request: "I call on Convention Fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation on behalf of my crew. Parley."

The Doctor snuck a smile. So she had stuck to the diplomatics. Good. Even better, it was working: the sergeant gave another gesture, lowered his rifle completely, and stepped forward to remove Rose's gun from her shoulders himself.

"You'll take care to remember you are the trespassers here," he growled as the rest of the group closed in around them. "Any more heat you'd like to declare?" He swept one wide eye down the line of prisoners and tossed Rose's gun to a nearby soldier like it was a bale of straw. Soon enough, the entire Parallel Torchwood crew had surrendered their weapons, and Jack even tossed his two pistols to the nearest guard.

"Hey, don't scratch those," he warned.

"Hands behind your head," snapped the soldier he had tossed them to. Jack obeyed, and merged with the others, falling into line behind Mickey, as the soldiers compressed them. He looked over their heads for the Doctor, who was at the front of what was now a loose clump, facing a hallway they were never going to fit down. Jack hoped the Time Lord's mind was racing. He turned his attention instead to the three strange teenagers in front of Mickey, and assigned himself to keeping them all standing through whatever was going on: the Doctor hadn't had to work with this many people in all the time Jack had known him, and these three – four, including Jenny, who was up front with her parents – were clearly amateurs, and petrified.

The prisoners awaited marching orders, but the soldiers continued to face inwards, watching them. Suddenly, there was a loud _crack, _and a flash of white light sent them all from existence.

.o.o.o.

The whole group materialised again in a large, grey room, where light fixtures the size of tyres swung haphazardly from the ceiling, highlighting the millions of dust motes that clouded around the newcomers as the excess from their arrival disturbed the atmosphere. Those unaccustomed to instantaneous transport groaned and doubled over, trying to alleviate the feeling that lightning had just fried all their innards: other than the soldiers, the Doctor and Jack were the only ones who remained completely upright.

Fortunately, the sergeant didn't find this too amusing, or unexpected.

"You, you, come w' me. Everyone else, grab a drink, sit down, getcher 'eads straight." He eyed Rose and added; "You'll get yer parley in five."

The crowd parted before the Doctor and Jack, and as they followed the sergeant away, nobody moved to follow them. The soldiers' postures slackened, and a few fetched crates of fruit, juice boxes and muffins to hand out. Amber was the first to sit down, leaning her back against the wall, shaking. She groaned and leaned her head back, sweat glistening all over her still-greenish face. Jenny sat a few inches away, hugging her own knees, and looked over at her friend.

"You alright?" she asked.

"Yeah," Amber replied, her voice more gravelly than she had expected. "It's weird. I like it, it's fun...even though I feel like I'm going to throw up." She half-forced a laugh. "This is so messed up."

Jenny laughed too. "Just go with it," she suggested.

Amber smiled wearily. "Don't really have a choice now, do I?" Her eyes sought the Doctor, the man they had come for without meaning it, and Jenny turned to follow her gaze.

"How's your dad?" Amber teased. "A hand!"

"Yeah, he does that," Jenny said, sighting a one of the food-bearing soldiers. He came over to them with a courteous, slightly apologetic smile, and handed Jenny the snacks for both of them as Amber shifted to be sitting more upright. Passing Amber her share as the soldier walked away, Jenny added; "Let's just say it's alien and leave it at that."

"So...can you do that?"

"Probably."

"Of course." Amber laughed weakly and looked down at the food in her lap. An apple – a normal, red and green, shiny, crunchy-looking apple. She smiled at it, thanking it for reminding her that not _everything _about this was beyond her understanding or control. Then she looked back up at Jenny, smiling in earnest. "D'you reckon he can play soccer?"

.o.o.o.

Jack and the Doctor both surveyed their surroundings as they walked: another hatch in the middle of this roof; bunks in crannies along the walls, with sparse bedding; a table in one corner with a kettle and half-finished box of some kind of pastry. The sergeant stopped them when they reached the back corner of the room, so that they were standing just a few steps from the open doorway of a tunnel just like the ones they had been in earlier, when the rubble had started falling.

"Alright," the sergeant growled. "You bastards 'ave no idea what's going on here, do you? Pop in for a holiday? No, I don't think so. This planet's been red-lighted since the start of the war. This is exactly why, too – what'rya doin' bringin' bloody civilians into the middle of it?"

Of _course _they would be in a war zone.

"Humans!" the Doctor muttered under his breath.

"We crashed," Jack offered to the sergeant. "Any port in a storm, you know, Sarg."

"Eh. Sergeant Tucker – sir to you. An' you wouldn't be sayin' that if you landed on their side, I tell ya. Probly couldn't anyhow – they'd drill right through that contraption 'o yours."

The Doctor pulled a face. "Nah, she'd be fine."

"That's what we thought. Seven years ago. Bin stuck here ever since."

The Doctor thought of his massive crew, and reassessed his objectives: 1) get everybody out alive, 2) help the planet, 3) investigate the star. If those three happened to coincide, _molto bene –_ and if not...he had a _lot _of work cut out for him.


	18. Catalyst

**AN ~ I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry! I've been finally getting (read: stealing) some writing time but channelling it all into my Angels Take Manhattan feels. I forgot I already had this chap mostly done! Good news though, I'm nearly finished school FOR EVER and when I get out I'll be writing like a beast I promise! (Either that, or I'll just drop dead when two years of exhaustion hits me in the face.)**

**Thanks for sticking with me (again) – enjoy!**

**Previously...**

Everyone's on Messaline, the stars are going out and parallels colliding (hence Doctor and Rose now being in the same place.) They got arrested by a guy named Sergeant Tucker and taken to the underground base of an army, where they await an explanation of what is going on and why, exactly, this uninhabited planet has been "red-lighted" since the "start of the war"...seven years ago...

**Chapter Eighteen ~ Catalyst**

Leaning one shoulder against the wall, the Doctor slowly turned an apple in his hand, watching Tucker set up a table and program a holojector for his 'parley' – during which he had agreed to debrief the newcomers on the situation, since the Doctor had offered to help in return for being let out of the handcuffs. In truth, he wanted to, but he had questions that stretched beyond this warzone – like the fact that Messaline was supposed to be uninhabited, but apparently this lot had crash-landed here seven years ago? And were at war already?

The Doctor was getting the feeling that, like the suns, this had more to do with the crumbling walls between universes than he would care for at this moment in time. _Get them out. _His prime directive. But as much as he would like to just run full-pelt for the TARDIS, come back here and pick them up, then dash off to Earth, he knew he had to find out what was going on first: if the parallels were blurring, the walls of the universe were crumbling, and that put everybody in danger, Earth or no. If he could help here without risking anyone's lives, he had to do it...but how?

In the midst of Sergeant Tucker's audience, Rose hugged her knees, half listening to the Sergeant but mostly watching the Doctor, who was staring straight ahead but looking inwards, paying at least as little attention as she was. She could bet though, somehow, he was taking everything in and weaving it seamlessly into whatever he was planning – though his expression gave no clear sign what that plan would be. Her eyes trailed down his slim form until she was looking at Mickey, who sat just a half a metre away from her, knees up but feet splayed, watching the presentation. She felt a stab of guilt – would she ever be able to look at him without it? - and quickly turned back to the front.

Martha stared at the holojector in horror, jaw slowly slackening as amateur night-vision footage from a scout of the 'enemy base' lit up the UNIT logo behind some barbed-wire fencing the cameraman was currently cutting through. They still had UNIT in 6012? She frowned: she did not doubt that the Doctor's driving skills may have landed them so far in the future...but something in her gut was not right about this. On the screen, a UNIT guard – dressed in black with a beret that would have been red in normal light – jogged into sight and then raised the alarm. Two more joined him, weapons raised, and the Sergeant paused the footage on them.

"As you can see, their hand-held weaponry is absolutely primitive," he pointed out, gesturing to the guns. Martha frowned, recognising the weapons as standard issue UNIT G36 assault rifles. Surely they wouldn't still be issuing those by 2050, let alone the year 6000. She looked at the date stamp on the footage: _3/5/6012. _She blinked, and it changed. _3/5/2008 – _just a week ago, her Earth time. She turned her head slowly towards Jack, and found him looking at her out of the corner of his eye, mirroring her concern. She hadn't just imagined it. For a moment, she considered raising the alarm, but no doubt the Doctor had already noticed; best let him take in what he could. Speaking of which...Martha listened with a tight chest.

"...and these drones have recently picked up a number of strange and powerful energy signatures from their base." The Sergeant paused and tilted his head, listening. There was a quiet rumble, and the ground began to shake ever so slightly. The planet's inhabitants tensed ever so slightly, eyes all gravitating toward the roof. Tucker's eyes darkened. "They're coming," he growled.

Everyone scrambled to their feet. The green-shirted soldiers rushed to reclaim their guns, and in the flurry, Martha tried to get to the back of the room, to the Doctor. Rose and Mickey found the confiscated weapons and called for their team. Jack seized his pistols back. The rumbling got louder, and sirens started wailing, and dust and shale rained down on them as the sound got closer. Martha ducked, covered her ears, and gritted her teeth as her innards began to tremble along with the rest of the room. She tried to block it all out: she had to get to the Doctor. What did the change in the date stamp mean? What did UNIT have to do with any of this? He would know. He had to.

Martha heard the groan and creak of strained metal, and then a crash.

"Get down!" Someone flew at her back, knocking her forward, and Martha hit the concrete floor like a rag doll.

.o.o.o.

The Doctor coughed and opened his eyes. He could feel his shoulders aching, wedged in the corner of the tunnel, right next to a reinforced door frame, where he had flung himself to escape the cave-in. Dust settled around him as his eyes adjusted to the dim light and saw, a metre or so from his toes, back the way he had come, huge chunks and slabs of rock and bare electric cables; the collapsed roof.

_No._

He jumped to his feet immediately. He couldn't be separated from them, no. His hearts galloped. He had to get them out, all of them, Jenny, _Rose-_

"Oi!" A familiar voice called, further down the tunnel than he was. "Anyone out there?" That's one, safe.

"Donna!" he called, waving his hand in front of the doorway, watching the wreckage in front of him for signs of life. Donna stuck her head out and assessed the mess at his feet. A blonde head appeared a moment later, and the Doctor breathed deep.

"Bi' of a mess, hey dad?" she remarked, smiling exactly like Rose did when she was trying to make him smile back. He nodded as Jenny and Donna joined him in his pocket of hallway, kept his eyes straight ahead, scanning the wreck. Something moved, and he dived towards it, flinging stones carelessly out of his way until a hand grasped his with heartening vitality.

"Rose! Come here, I've got you." His heartbeat began to steady as he helped her other hand push a slab out of the way, and dragged her from the wreckage. Her eyes were open and as the Doctor stepped back, she coughed violently as she rolled onto her stomach and clambered to her feet.

"Well," she panted, hands on her knees. "That was exciting." She looked around, and noted the considerably smaller group. She wasn't sure what to say next, what to do, except, "Where are the others?"

The Doctor saw the concern in her eyes. The same one he felt: _I brought them here. I have to get them home. _He took her hand again, and gave it a solid squeeze.

"They're probably fine," he assured her in a low voice. "If we can just figure out where we are, we can find them. Both sides of this are human; they'll be able to communicate, at the very least. Plus, I doubt they're on their own."

She looked at the floor, and Donna put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Rose," she said softly. "We'll find 'em."

_Donna Noble...exterminated saved changed._

Rose bit her lip and stepped forward, so that their grasps fell away. She yanked her gun from the wreckage and put the strap back over her shoulder. She saw the Doctor's face change – not quite disappointment, not quite anger...in fact, it was almost forlorn.

She sighed and turned away, heading off down the clear passage. Jenny moved to follow, but she could see her father was disturbed. Donna opened her mouth to take care of it instead, when suddenly the Doctor snapped out of it. Jenny smiled, expecting a cheerful 'Allons-y!', but the Doctor was stone silent as he disappeared from sight

.o.o.o.

Josh sat with his arms around his sister's shoulder in the corner of the room, a huge shaft of concrete like the blade of a giant knife, almost completely cutting them off from the rest of the room. At least it shielded them from the cave in.

He could hear movement. He stiffened, and felt Amber do the same.

"Who- who's there?" she stammered. In reply, there was a chuckle.

"Don't shoot," said the American as he edged through the thin allowance by the side of the fallen roof-turned-wall, hands raised in mock surrender. Ty followed him with wide eyes.

"Amber! Josh! You guys okay?" He ran over to them and helped them both up.

"Where'd you guys come from?" Josh asked.

"Hid in a bunk," Ty told them, like it had been the most thrilling thing in his life. "Those things are reinforced like Buckingham Palace! Waited til everything calmed down, and then walked on a pile 'o rubble about this high -" he indicated to his hip. "Came to this landslide, saw the huge bit, decided to check behind it for signs of life. An' here we are."

"Yeah," the Captain put in, "but the entrance tunnel's blocked."

"Oh."

The three teenagers looked at the ground for a moment. Then Amber lifted her eyes.

"The roof fell in," she began. "But we're underground. So there must be either the surface, or another floor above us. If we can get _up, _then we can just find another one of those hatch things and see if that's not blocked."

All of a sudden, Jack scooped her into a one-armed hug. "Knew you'd get it out of your system!" he cheered. "You heard the lady. Hup-to, we're on the way up!"

.o.o.o.

Mickey and Martha had to crawl, and force some the rubble aside and bend themselves around immovable chunks. They did not talk, only panted and breathed dust and tried to remember which way was up and which way was forward.

"I see something," Mickey wheezed at last. He was so close, so close...and the path was so clear...but he was so exhausted. His arms shuddered with the pressure of even holding up his chest and commando-crawling those last few metres.

"Come on!" Martha urged. So he pushed himself, until he burst into the relatively open air and threw himself against the far wall of a clear corridor. He stretched out his arms, and they roared visciously, but he was smiling. Then Martha dragged herself from the tiny crawlspace and staggered to her feet, one hand on the wall, bent almost double as she sucked in air to sooth her starving, aching muscles.

"Lets not do that again," she rushed out in one breath, before inhaling another.

"Yeah, I'm with you." Mickey nodded, then looked around. "Where is everyone?" The lights were down, but there was only one direction they could go from here. How far astray was it going to lead them? He looked back at Martha. "You still got that, uh-"

She held it up, the screen cracked but displaying a radar and two blipping dots.

"This is us," she gestured to the one on the lower left-hand corner of the screen. "This is the TARDIS." Naturally, the complete opposite corner. Mickey groaned. Martha scowled, and straightened.

"I can't track the others; they're not registered. We're just going to have to head for it and see if we find anyone else."

"But if we get there before anyone else, won't it send us home or something?"

Martha tucked the pad inside her jacket and crossed her arms over it, considering this point as she disappeared down the hallway. Mickey, not unused to being left unanswered, quickly followed.


	19. Chase

**A/N ~ Forgive me guys, I'm so sorry! I hope you've been enjoying the other ficcing I've been doing in this story's accidentally-extended hiatus. I did drop off the face of the planet for a while there (and watched all the Sarah Jane Adventures followed by 4 straight seasons of Bones) but please accept a bazillion fanvids in apology? I haven't been lazing around on my haunches I swear.**

** user/TheSonicBuzz2011?feature=mhee**

**Happy New Year/Clara/Uni acceptance/whatever else is good right now! (I am also taking oneshot requests in apology. Have a souffle!) And even better: I can actually PROMISE I won't be as long with the next chap this time!**

**Anyway, shutting up now.**

Previously

Everyone's on Messaline, the stars are going out and parallels colliding (hence Doctor and Rose now being in the same place.) They got arrested by a guy named Sergeant Tucker and taken to the underground base of an army, where they await an explanation of what is going on and why, exactly, this uninhabited planet has been "red-lighted" since the "start of the war"...seven years ago...

Ambushed by the enemy, our adventurers were split up. The Doctor, Rose, Jenny and Donna are searching the tunnels; Mickey and Martha are tracking their way towards the Tardis; Jack and Jenny's three teenage friends are headed for the planet's surface to try and get their bearings. But Sergeant Tucker and his men aren't happy with the unfortunate coincidence of their arrival, and the attack...

**Chapter Nineteen ~ Chase**

The three of them let him fume – or whatever it was he was doing, for his frame was taught but his expression too melancholy to be rage – for a long while by himself, following in silence because they knew that somehow speaking to each other would make it worse. This way and that they turned through the corridors, occasionally passing a collapse, a boiler, vents or crates, but never meeting a dead end: it was as though the Doctor had a map in his head that was leading him wherever he was going.

_To the TARDIS, _Jenny realised, feeling a faint thrill break through the tense mood that had been plaguing her as she reaffirmed how settled she felt in this element. As she realised this, Jenny became aware of a voice murmuring deep in her thoughts. She could not quite work out what they were saying: it was a female voice. Mature. English – or possibly Gallifreyan, since from what she gathered, they sounded English. But they were, or she was, not speaking English. Of this, Jenny was sure.

Suddenly, they stopped. The Doctor held up a hand and hissed sharply through his teeth, calling them all to attention. They studied the wall he was staring at: dirty, dusty concrete, just like the rest. There was part of a ruined spider web dribbling down from the roof, but otherwise, it was quite ordinary. Rose eyed Jenny and Donna. Donna eyed Jenny and Rose. Jenny, since she was walking in the middle, watched Donna, since she was the least familiar of the two. Without even the sounds of their footsteps, the pounding of their hearts – and of all the words and questions wanting to get out – became all the louder.

As did a distant rumbling sound.

It was not like the ones they had heard earlier; the ones which shook tonnes of dust from the roof and which had led to the smashing of it. This one was much more subtle, and as it neared, became a more separated sound – or rather, bunch of sounds.

"It's people," Donna exhaled. "They got out." Her tone mostly held relief, but something about the way the footsteps pounded told her it was the soldiers, not the rest of Team Tardis, who was joining them now. And that something was about to go terribly wrong.

This fear was confirmed when, seconds after her announcement, the men began to shout, and two gun shots were fired. They rang down the corridor with a sickening _pop _sound, and a tiny plume of concrete powder rose from a spot in the wall where one of the bullets had hit.

"RUN!" the Doctor roared, whipping around on his heels to check that the others were following before taking off to the right. Rose grabbed Jenny's hand and lunged after him like a horse leaping from standing to gallop. Donna took another back, and saw Sergeant Tucker's scowl as he rounded the corner, raising his gun as he passed the new bullet mark, ready to shoot her and run on past.

Fortunately, Donna had become rather good at running herself.

.o.o.o.

"So what brings you here?" Martha asked, glancing up at the roof just in case there was a manhole. It was so dark in here her eyes were starting to hurt, especially after having spent so long fixed on those three tiny, bright dots.

"Rose," Mickey said, almost sighing, as if he had contemplated not telling her.

"Rose?" Martha repeated.

"Yeah. She's...upset."

"About the Doctor."

Mickey gave a rueful snort of agreement, a how-did-you-guess, and Martha pursed her lips, fixing her eyes on the screen again.

"That man," she murmured, almost to herself. "Still," she added, a little louder, "I suppose, with a daughter, she has all the more reason. What must it be like, to be the mother of a child who might never have been able to see her father?"

"What must it be like to be the child?" Mickey added. Martha frowned and spun to face him. He was closer than she had thought: she almost bumped into him. Recovering quickly, Martha noted;

"I feel like there's something more going on here."

"I- I don't really want to talk about it." Mickey said suddenly, turning away to face the direction they were travelling. He renewed his pace, and Martha jogged a few strides to catch up. Seeing her in the corner of his eye, not giving up, Mickey slowed again.

"I never said you did," Martha said, offering the panel to Mickey to provide him a distraction from these dark feelings. His expression was dredging up her own long-buried unrequited pains too. Part of her hated him for it, but mostly, she pitied him. She tried to tell him this with a touch of his arm as she relinquished the device. "I understand, that's all."

She continued down the corridor until she reached the fringe of the light given off by the screen.

"Sorry," Mickey said quietly. "I didn't mean anything by it. I just met you and I don't want to..."

To what? To make Rose jealous? To hurt her? Ha. He only wished. He frowned over the top of the screen at Martha, keeping his chin bent down so that he would only need to move his eyes if she got him in her line of sight as she studied their surroundings for any change. She looked a little sad, but that wasn't quite specific enough. Hers was an emotion that, if he was not mistaken, Mickey had felt himself. She was feeling overshadowed.

Suddenly, she did catch him, but instead of smoothly looking back at the screen, or glancing up at the roof, Mickey was momentarily frozen. Martha smiled, the gloom evaporating off her face. She nodded her head, gesturing the way they were heading. Mickey cleared his throat and kept walking, and Martha fell into step beside him, silent.

.o.o.o.

"This is ridiculous!" Rose panted. She lengthened her stride in an attempt to keep up with the Doctor. Jenny was comfortably at her father's side, as if she had always belonged there, and Donna trailed just a few steps behind, but Rose could not shake a fear that they were about to be separated.

The Doctor and Jenny stopped so suddenly that Rose ploughed straight past them. Simultaneously, the Doctor and Jenny grabbed her jacket, pulling her back just as she became aware of the red laser line that cut across the path. A whole network of lasers, apparently.

"Brilliant!" Donna declared, with a great deal of sarcasm. The Doctor was already digging in his jacket pocket for his screwdriver. He really needed a designated pocket: this was getting ridiculous.

Humorous thoughts began to fade from his mind, though, as the ever-present footsteps and now, shouting, warned that the soldiers were rapidly catching up.

"Get us past it," Rose ordered, slinging her gun into position and sprinting back the way they had come, planting herself behind a crate of supplies. The Doctor's head snapped up, following her, hand still inside his jacket as his mind raced to keep up with what was going on. Not the running or the multitasking, not any of that. Rose had a gun. And she knew how to use it. And she was aiming it at _people._

The Doctor started to run towards her, to stop her. The first troops would appear any moment. Suddenly, he was knocked off balance from behind. Whipping around on his heels to see the source, his hearts stuttered as he instantly recognised Jenny, headed for some 44-gallon drums on the other side of the passage way. He grabbed her arm.

"Dad," Jenny hissed, jerking against his grasp. "I have to-"

"No," the Doctor breathed back, his voice strikingly authoritative even barely audible as it was. "Listen to me, Jenny. Killing – after a while it infects you. Once it does you're never rid of it."

"We don't have time," Jenny objected. "We don't have a choice."

"We always have a choice."

A shout alerted them to Sergeant Tucker's arrival. Jenny ran toward Rose, twisting the Doctor with her change of direction and throwing off his hand. The Doctor cursed in Gallifreyan, tearing up as he realised that, for now at least, his cause was lost. He jogged back to the lasers, finally locating the Sonic and working furiously at finding the right setting – a little too furiously, actually; he was almost scared to see what was happening behind him. Donna, on the other hand, watched in horror as Rose passed her gun to her daughter and shoved the lid off the crate, already reaching in for a new weapon of her own.

Gunfire tattered from both sides, and Donna watched the tension return to the Doctor's shoulders, growing now to affect his expression and his voice.

"Rose!" he ordered as soon as the lasers switched off. She took her finger off the trigger and looked at him, and her hard expression softened, reassuring him that his Rose was in there somewhere. She turned and waved at Jenny, and the younger girl too stopped firing. Together, they joined the Doctor and Donna and sprinted to the other end of the passage.

They came out into a large, round room, the walls matching the corridors but red steel alloy supporting a roof which reached higher than the top of the corridors and culminated in a manhole-sized door, also circular, which no doubt opened onto the planet's surface. They identified all of this quickly, because they had been here before – just hours before, in fact. It was the very same room in which sat the Tardis, waiting for them as placidly as if they had just popped out to get chips.

Rose and Jenny turned to face the way they had come, guns at the ready. Donna, feeling a little sick, pressed her back against the plain blue door, ready to help but hoping that someone else was figuring out what to do, because she certainly was not up to it. The Doctor ran right by her, shoving past the 'Pull to Open' sign and leaping onto the console room floor, almost in a single bound. He looked around frantically for something to use. Something that was not a weapon – thankfully, as he did not have many of those lying around - but which might buy them some time.

His eyes fell on the Terraforming globe, and he almost cheered. Something like that would – at least, he hoped – do nicely.


	20. Questions

**AN ~ Have I finally driven you guys away? I didn't get any response at all to the last chapter...I can't say I really deserve it but look at me, it's only been a week this time, right?...Guys?**

**Chapter Twenty ~ Questions**

Captain Jack almost laughed with relief as he felt the rush of fresh air on his face. It was surprisingly easy to forget, down in those tunnels, just how cramped and dusty it was. Up here though, in the open, on the surface, was an atmosphere designed for terraformers – or perhaps, if they were to believe they were in the 61st Century, _by _them.

Jack clambered out onto the surface – a dry, flat area with all the warmth of the concrete tunnels below, but at least it was land – and sucked in lungfuls of fresh Messaline atmosphere to clear the stuffy air from his lungs. As they too emerged from the tunnels, Jenny's three friends 'oohed' and 'aaahed' with delight and amazement. And not just at the crisp, clean air.

Looking around, Amber, Ty and Josh felt as though they had climbed into a dinosaur movie: they were standing (or in Jack's case, lying) on a cream-grey slate-like area, possibly a lake bed, and around the expansive basin, fern-like growths led on to forests of tall palms and other fronded plants, just like something out of _Jurassic Park._

A large bird – or, they all thought, a pterodactyl? - screeched in the distance, and the three teens could not help but cheer even though they were all shivering.

"It worked!" Amber squealed, covering her hands with her mouth and turning slowly as a small herd of purple and blue horse-like creatures galloped out of the trees and disappeared on their way up a steep, rocky, sparsely vegetated cliff. One limp hand fell to Ty's arm, tears forming in her eyes as one struggling foal collapsed at the bottom of the climb, and a short, sturdy-looking mare turned back to gather it up and encourage it along.

Ty, meanwhile, had been distracted by the bird, which did resemble a pterodactyl but one covered in what appeared to be fur. And one which had decided to land just inside the edge of the lake bed. It watched him curiously, twitching its head every now and then as chickens tended to do. The gesture, while simple, was actually quite threatening given that, upright as it was, the bird was as tall as, if not taller than he was.

"Worked?" Jack interrupted. "What worked?"

"The terraforming..." Josh sounded distant, distracted. Jack frowned.

"Terraforming wouldn't have worked this quickly," he explained, rolling up off the ground and shrugging his shoulders to rearrange his coat. "The ferns maybe, but the trees are too tall to have only been here a few hours, and to have such established animals is extremely rare even a year after terraforming."

"Oh." Amber frowned too, turning to face Jack as the last of the horses disappeared.

"Oh," Ty said, blinking and warily turning away from the giant bird.

Josh said nothing. He was staring up into the sky, at the sun, which didn't look anything special: a white orb, lots of rays, almost exactly like the Earth sun. The glaring white light bore into their eyes, and Amber and Ty had to blink at the ground several times to readjust. Jack, however, was more interested in the sun. His eyes had been able to adapt quite quickly, and into focus came what Josh was looking at: not one sun, but two.

Suddenly, there came a sound like thunder: not the rolling kind, the massive clap that seems to emanate from every particle of everything. It seems as though it will burst your ear drums and break all your bones at once. Overhead, the sky went dark, as if it had suddenly become night, but even darker. Both of the suns were gone, and only a handful of twinkling dots remained in the sky.

Remembering the same phenomenon on the radar back at UNIT HQ, Jack waited with bated breath – and his hands instinctively waiting to cover his ears, even though they would not be fast enough - for the sun to return. When the seconds stretched into minutes of neck-craning silence, Jack realised this time was going to be different. He could feel it. He could feel the whole planet being shifted. Jack almost swore. Ty, upon jerking his head up and seeing near nothing, did.

.o.o.o.

The Doctor grabbed the terraform globe as though his life depended on it – which at this point, it very well might. He sprinted out of the doors, past his companions and straight into the middle of no-man's-land, where he stood with a furious expression which hopefully counteracted the hop-a-long-ishness of what he planned to advertise was a potential weapon.

"That's enough!" he growled, and he could feel the room quiver. Even his friends cowered slightly, back against the Tardis. It was the instinct of an inferior race, recognising they had already been beaten. He could feel the Time Lord Victorious broiling under his skin, just waiting to leap forth. He kept it reined in, but in the darkness of his eyes and the coldness of his voice, his enemies could tell his threats were real. In a quiet voice, because he had everyone's unwavering attention, he went on.

"No more guns. No more killing. I hold in my hands a weapon that has ended wars of scales you cannot dream. Yours may have just cost me my friends. I am not a happy man."

Sergeant Tucker, for all his grizzled looks, was staring at the Doctor's unforgiving face with an expression that was morphing slowly from anger and determination of his own, into a fearful-and-surprised sort of one that suggested his beard might fall off at any moment.

"So," the Doctor continued, lowering the Terraforming globe to rest at his feet. "While everybody's listening, I'd like to know why we're all here. Why chase us, hm? Haven't you got your own enemy out there somewhere?"

He waved one hand dismissively at the corridor from whence they had come. Sergeant Tucker's expression hardened again – though not quite back to its original state – and he readjusted his grip on his gun.

"Your arrival coincided with the worst attack our base has experienced so far," he explained, in none too polite a tone. "We have reason to believe you're involved. Can't be too careful in war times."

"War times?" the Doctor's voice was breathy and high-pitched. "Doesn't it bother you that this war doesn't make any sense? I mean, not that they often do, but this is a new level of nonsense. You're fighting nobody. There's nobody here." He opened his arms to make his point, as if the walls were not there to hinder the expanse of nothingness.

Sergeant Tucker, however, glared down the barrel of his gun, prepared to fire. He could not figure out the Doctor's game, but he did not like being played with.

"I see a few."

"We just got here!" The Doctor stepped forward, hopefully further discouraging action from his own side, who were no doubt getting antsy back there. "You said this war has been going on since you crashed here. _How_ did you crash here? Think."

Tucker frowned. "Your time for questions is over."

The Doctor sighed exaggeratedly. "I'm _trying _to _help you."_

He looked at the soldiers surrounding the Sergeant. Many were equally as tight-lipped and stone-faced as their leader, but some were young and afraid of the inconceivable power of this unusual man. He tended to do that to people. He didn't like to exploit such emotions as fear, but better that than eternal oblivion.

"Come on. Please." He locked soft eyes on one of the young ones, whose mouth opened and closed like a goldfish. "I'm trying to help you."

.o.o.o.

"No supernova, no black hole," Jack muttered, still peering at the impossibly black sky. "But we have to assume..."

"How long do we have?" Josh asked, blinking and lowering his head, finally seeming to come out of his trance – at least, to the same level of functionality as the others. Jack turned on the spot, now looking out at the horizon, examining the now shadow-shrouded landscape.

"Not long. Minutes – a few hours, maybe," he offered. "We're just seeing it. It probably happened while we were down below."

_The stars are going out. Across all universes, maybe. No typical conversions of energy into supernovas or black holes; simply disappearing. Could it have something to do with the time jump on the video? Terraforming. The animals. _

A picture was forming in Jack's mind of what was going on here. He couldn't pinpoint it exactly: someone with a multiuniversal, timey-wimey mind would have to do that. Jack knew just the man, of course: he made a note in his head to tell the Doctor when he could. For now, though, all that mattered was getting these newbies off a doomed planet before it went up.

.o.o.o.

"There- there were..." the youngster glanced at the Sergeant, who glared back at him with warning in his eyes, but try though he might to hold back, he felt compelled to speak. "Solar flares...or at least, that's what we thought. They were rare at first, but recently it's worse. More frequent and- and stranger. They interfered with our systems and we came down here."

"That's enough, soldier," Tucker warned, in a voice that was quiet but grave.

"Uninhabited planet," the Doctor said sympathetically, focus unwavering from the younger soldier. "Rough. Lonely. Must've been very tough. What's your name, soldier?"

"J-Jackson, sir. Chris Jackson."

"That's _enough!" _Tucker barked. Letting the nose of his larger gun fall, he drew a pistol and shot it at the younger troop's leg. It hit just above the kneecap, and Chris yelped, doubled over and staggered forward, hardly able to believe what his commander had just done. Clutching his leg, Chris moaned a little between increasingly frantic breaths.

"What the 'ell was that?!" Donna demanded, leading the pack as she, Rose and Jenny swept forward to collect the injured man and take them behind the lines. She lingered for a moment while the other two retreated.

"This is war," Tucker sneered. "That was disobeying direct orders. Practically desertion. I shoulda killed him."

"You bloody well should-"

"HEY!" Once again, the Doctor seized the attention of the room, swinging the orb above his head and letting some of the might of the Time Lords augment his usually weedy, non-threatening frame. "Let's all just take a minute, okay?! Deep breaths. Let's all of us use our brains, hm? You don't want my help, fine, but nobody else dies today. I am the Doctor, and I declare: this war is _over!_" 

He threw the terraforming globe at the ground, where it shattered. Around the room, pins and ammunition were clicked back into place, safety mechanisms disabled, guns raised. The Doctor could hardly believe it. They had just received definitive proof that this was not a weapon of mass destruction – at least, not the instant, unavoidable kind - and they were _still _planning to shoot him. Bloody humans. They could be so _stupid _sometimes. And blind.

"Oh, come on," he sighed, gesturing to where the green and gold gases were seeping into the concrete. "This is not a weapon. Not earth tech, but Torchwood keeps them pretty well hidden – explains why you wouldn't have seen it if we were in the 21st century. It's a terraforming globe. Purifies water and air. Grows trees. It's an instrument of peace. Never mind that though. My question is this: why are we _not _in the 21st century?"


	21. Answers

**AN ~ Okay that's it. I can't contain my fangirling! I went to Comicon on Sunday, the Cinema Experience on Thursday, and then the BBC (** www . youtube watch?feature=player _ embedded&v=SRQu3MvRySA) **& BBCAmerica **( www . Dailymotion video/xy97qp_series-7-part-2-bbca-trailer_shortfilms#.UUT-izd5KnI)** trailers for season 7B came out the other day - I AM SO EXCITED! And Aussies, time to party, coz we get the eps at 7:30pm on the 31****st**** on ACTUAL TELEVISION!**

**Thankfully I was able to channel all this fanergy into finishing this chapter. There's a lot going on but enjoy!**

**Previously**

_He threw the terraforming globe at the ground, where it shattered. Around the room, pins and ammunition were clicked back into place, safety mechanisms disabled, guns raised. The Doctor could hardly believe it. They had just received definitive proof that this was not a weapon of mass destruction – at least, not the instant, unavoidable kind - and they were still planning to shoot him. Bloody humans. They could be so stupid sometimes. And blind._

"_Oh, come on," he sighed, gesturing to where the green and gold gases were seeping into the concrete. "This is not a weapon. Not earth tech, but Torchwood keeps them pretty well hidden – explains why you wouldn't have seen it if we were in the 21__st__ century. It's a terraforming globe. Purifies water and air. Grows trees. It's an instrument of peace. Never mind that though. My question is this: why are we not in the 21__st__ century?"_

**Chapter Twenty One ~ Answers**

"What did you say?" one of them demanded. Close to the Sergeant, he might have been some sort of officer. Judging by the way he stepped past the Sergeant (which, given the frown and glare this elicited, was against Tucker's wishes) perhaps more senior. He certainly had the badges for it, material stitch-on though they were.

"Who's asking?" the Doctor replied, in the same commanding tone, edged with dark threat.

"Sergeant Major James McCarthy."

For him to have revealed himself after so long of absolute secrecy, the Doctor figured he must have had them running scared. He grinned, an open, toothy grin, and felt a chill run over the crowd at his disconcerting calm.

"Hello Jimmy! I'm the Doctor. And I said 'we are not in the twenty first century'. We are in fact, in the sixty first."

"Hm?"

"Third of May, 60-12. Which, frankly, one of you should have noticed by now – it was right there on the video footage, right Martha?"

The Doctor made a point of peering through the crowd of soldiers. While a few of them fumed, they were nudged aside by the others who had long since recognised that the Doctor was probably right, and almost definitely their only chance of having the last seven years (or so they thought) of their lives explained properly. Sure enough, the shuffling revealed a slightly blushing Martha, tempted but refusing to cower under the weight of so many curious eyes, and Mickey, whose gaze shot straight through the crowd to Rose and Jenny.

"Mickey!" Jenny cried with joy and relief, running towards him with open arms. He dodged his way through the crowd and threw himself into her arms before she could get too close to the wrong side. The arms that wrapped around him betrayed for a moment the five year old Jenny really was, worried for the man who was essentially her father.

"Mickey..." Rose repeated absently as she watched him guide her daughter over to their side. She frowned at him. There was something she had to tell him, wasn't there?

"Come in, come in, join the party," the Doctor beckoned, hailing the newcomers over with a slight sense of urgency, gesturing faintly with his head to the assembly of soldiers now dumbly observing the scene. Glancing over her shoulder at the soldiers, Martha decided against asking the others if they had seen Jack and Jenny's friends.

"Okay, so, these are my friends," the Doctor announced, gesturing to the gathering behind him as he once again addressed the soldiers. "Not all of them though, Jimmy. Perhaps you can help me with that? Big top man like you, you must have access to some pretty amazing tech – way above this lot, eh?"

"Of course not!" the Sergeant Major huffed. He looked a little flustered, red rising in his cheeks.

"In fact," the Doctor went on, "way above anyone in the twenty first century. Because they came to you, didn't they? When one of Tucker's little drones questioned the time stamp, they were sent to _you. _What did you tell them? That it was a glitch? Well, they probably wouldn't have believed you if you'd said transtemporal residual data reading. Maybe not even understood you. Which wouldn't surprise me at all, because, dear Jim, _you _were misunderstanding."

The Sergeant Major stormed out the front of his troops – who were looking increasingly doubtful about the situation. Those who had been standing around Chris, before he switched sides, were slowly drifting forward and towards the edges of the group, almost subconsciously joining the Doctor's team. Their weapons lowered, some even fell to their sides, and the Doctor felt the tendons in his shoulders relax slightly.

"Wow." Jenny almost mouthed. Rose's face lit up with a grin, almost laughing as she watched her daughter absorb the simplistic power of her father's incredible ability. Her heart once more swelled with love for this man, who could turn people's hearts with words. The gun in her hands felt like a hollow piece of metal against his words. She had forgotten how much she missed that feeling: of utter faith in language. In him.

She almost ran up and embraced him right then, but she could see another camp forming amongst the soldiers; one that involved a tighter grip on their weapons, and sharp eyes assessing the risk of each and every potential enemy that stood before them. Perhaps the guns wouldn't be so useless after all – what was the good of the Doctors' words, Rose thought, if they wouldn't let him speak?

"At least, I certainly _hope _you were misunderstanding, because I don't think your soldiers would be all that pleased to know that everyone they know and love is now long dead. I certainly hope you were planning to tell them at some stage if you did know. Were you even planning to go back? Were you even going to _try?_"

Rose, Donna and Martha shared a concerned glance. They were dead-ended this time: not all of them would make it to the Tardis if it came to a firefight. Even the Doctor himself had to admit, he was not accustomed to the duty of care of ten people. Two guns on their side were not going to be enough anyway, if push came to shove. And shove was looking increasingly likely.

_If, Rose. _She clung to the thought, to her faith in him, and refused to let her weapon gain substance again. _Only if._

"It was the twenty first century data that was actually the 'glitch...'" the Doctor continued, addressing confused, sympathetic and angry soldiers alike, trying to make them the victims in this – and at the same time, lower the number of guns pointing at them. But he was losing his audience now. Those who had decided on sympathy for the Doctor's cause shuffled to the edges of the mass, forlorn expressions on their faces because none were brave enough to actually step away. Those decided against the Doctor, or swayed by either trust in or fear of their superiors, drew closer to the higher ranks. The Doctor's eyes flicked between faces. They were glancing at each other, communicating somehow. He looked for signals, but he could not decipher them. They could, very soon, be in serious trouble.

"Rose," he called, trying not to let his voice waver as he resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. "Go into the Tardis and run a scan for the others. Take Jenny with you."

He had showed his hand more than he wanted to, but he had to do what he could. He was taking extra precautions, perhaps risky ones, but though he tried to tell himself there was no credit in favouritism, that leaving the others exposed was just as bad, he knew deep down that he would never forgive himself if he lost either of those two again. Other than that, though, the Doctor went on, determined not to alarm anybody in case confusion or frustration was the problem - which fortunately, with more simple-minded species' like most humans, was the case. Even if it was not, he figured there was not much else he could safely and peacefully achieve. With the knowledge that seven others were counting on him, he drew a deep breath, and with it, courage.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," he invited amiably - and everyone knew they didn't have a hope of doing that - "but the flare that brought you down also disrupted your sensors and blacked out your instruments, didn't it? You were crashing into another _time._"

As Rose obeyed the Doctor – and as she always would – she took another glance at her daughter and Mickey. Whenever she looked at them, she felt a rush of adrenalin or endorphins – no, more than that. It had to be more. It was _so powerful. _Almost overwhelming: somethingprimal that she could not name. Something that made her head spin unlike anything she had ever felt. It was dread. That was the only way she could think to put it. Terrible, looming dread; almost a premonition, as if bullets were flying at them, or the ground was about to open up beneath them and swallow them forever.

_This is natural, _she tried to tell herself as she swallowed the bile rising in her throat. Her fingers tingled, itching to drag Jenny behind herself. _Your four year old daughter is at risk of being shredded by bullets. It would be worse if you _didn't _feel like jumping in front of her._

"Jenny, come on," she beckoned, her hand already on the Tardis door. She had never had a typical motherly nature. And, to be honest, bullets did not top her list of safety concerns. And she had long since given up the thought that Jenny was a child. The instinct had never been _this strong, _Rose thought, scanning through Jenny's lifetime as the girl took an uncertain look around and obeyed her parents, fighting not to cringe away from the scrutinising eyes_. _No,it had never been so driving, so all-consuming, since the young Jenny had unwittingly mentioned the Dalek that day, oh so long ago, while playing with her bath toys.

"You were crashing into another _time," _the Doctor was saying – with increased enthusiasm and oddness, Rose couldn't help but notice. He was trying to draw attention away from them. "Into _this_ time. Well, if I'm going to believe you lot, seven years before this time."

_Seven years. Something about seven years._

"Seven years aaaaaand..." He licked one finger and held it up in the air, testing it. "Seven days."

Rose's heart became louder; it almost blotted out the Doctor's words. The greyness of everything started to blur objects and people into each other as the blood rushed around her brain. The feel of the wood of the Tardis door under her fingers became strange and soft. The soldiers across the way looked strangely at her, and the Doctor twisted back and forth in an effort to keep one eye on everything.

"Rose," Mickey asked, barely opening his mouth. "Y'okay?"

He almost moved back to join her by the Tardis, but he was frozen to the spot by Rose's eyes. They were glued on the Doctor, and almost obsessively wide. It was hauntingly familiar – from the outside, and to Rose herself: there was something...something she couldn't quite touch, in the back of her mind, that was as if it had been there forever. The Doctor's casual character dropped and he frowned, that beloved frown, accented by the fragment of their Doomsday parting that still haunted him. But his face, the face that she had never forgotten, suddenly didn't seem to make any sense. It didn't seem to exist at all. He was still there, but suddenly he was not flesh and blood. It was as if she could see...all of him. Like looking into infinity.

"Rose?"

The soldiers dropped instantly to the back of the Doctor's mind. He spun around fully to face Rose, and in that moment, the Time Lord Victorious faltered.

"Shoot the girl!" McCarthy ordered.

"Oh no you don't," Mickey objected, storming forward as if to twist the weapon out of the Sergeant's hand. But he couldn't- he wouldn't-

_Why do you keep saying my name? I don't know..._

_On the seventh day of the seventh year..._

"MICKEY!" Rose lunged after him, throwing herself into every step. She could not let this happen. If she did one thing in her whole life for that man, it would be to stop this. But she was moving impossibly slowly. It felt like he was miles away, and she was stuck in slow motion. _No, no!_

As the shot tore from the barrel, bass echoing like a drumbeat through the chamber, a cry tore from the Doctor's chest.

"_ROSE!"_


	22. Collapse

**A/N ~ Firstly: you might be interested in this video I made recently in celebration of our beloved Doctor/Rose: www . youtube watch?v=4juxsbXqd-M&list=UU2dLGS_N1w0r1FqtMfVZRTw&index=1 (take out the spaces)**

**Secondly, this is going to be either the last, or possibly second-last, chapter before an epilogue. This story has been a real challenge for me with lots of characters and LOADS of plot, but I've had fun and I hope you guys have liked it – you probably have, on some level, or you wouldn't still be reading it by now! I have a massive readership for this story but I hardly ever hear from you and I'd really love to! Drop me a review, let me know what you liked about it, and I'll try and point you towards some other stories you might like. Thanks for coming on this journey with me!**

_As the shot tore from the barrel, bass echoing like a drumbeat through the chamber, a cry tore from the Doctor's chest._

"_ROSE!"_

**Chapter Twenty Two ~ Collapse**

The giant bird opposite Ty opened its wings and launched into the sky, and for a long while the only sound was its wings beating against the air, over and over as it climbed and began to turn towards the far edge of the lake bed. Then a lonely, mournful cry rang out as though, to the bird, all other life had disappeared. Amber lifted a hand to her mouth, choking as her heartstrings trembled.

"The tunnels," Jack breathed after a moment.

"What?" Ty glanced at the others. They were starting to gravitate together, slightly pale and trembling. A brand new, primitive world lay in darkness around them, and the cry of the strange bird rang in their ears, and it made each of them count every breath in their lungs. Captain Jack's eyes were still slightly wide, and he stood with his legs further apart than usual, a focus on balance, as though the planet might rupture beneath him.

"The tunnels fell in because of the suns," Jack explained. "The force they must have created...it would be huge. But it's not a supernova, not a black hole. It's something else. Something just as destructive."

"What does _that _mean?" Josh demanded, though his voice shook.

"The planet could fall apart around us."

Trance-like, minds still swimming, there was a moment of baited breath as everyone tried to fathom the full implications of this. Suddenly, from under their feet came another sound. Another combination of _crack _and _boom, _just like the suns, but on a comparatively minute scale. Then, there was a voice, distorted by the distance and the earth, but still familiar. It was a desperate cry, just one word.

Like a bloodhound on the scent, Jack was off, coat flapping behind him as he sprinted across the lake bed and dove for the next porthole, where they had heard the sound. As he battled with the opening of it, the Doctor's voice echoed in his head, the layers of distortion fading until Jack knew, with heart-stopping certainty, what he had said.

_Rose._

.o.o.o.

It was a dull pain at first. Rose was reminded of that time in eighth grade when she got hit by a softball on her way to home base. It was strange to think that a tiny splinter of metal could produce this kind of pain.

But then it erupted into a spider's web of agony, splintering and spreading out from the impact point like a shattering glass, overwhelming all thought. Rose screamed, but her scream died as the world swam and morphed and faded to black. She was falling.

Her blood ran hot, and then cold, and she could feel arms under her shoulders.

"Mum? _Mum?" _ Jenny begged. Hot tears splashed down onto her mother's face, but Rose did not seem to notice them. Rose grimaced in pain, and Jenny hugged her mother tighter, leaning over her body and pressing their foreheads together. A gentle hand touched her shoulder, and Jenny turned her tearful eyes to Martha's soft but solemn expression.

"I'm a Doctor, okay?" she whispered. "Let me look."

"Doctor, Mickey, get back here!" Donna ordered, bursting the bubble of shock that had everyone reeling. With only a vague sense of recognition, Mickey jogged over, feet dragging, his bones feeling like lead. He could not tear his eyes off his best friend even as Jenny flung herself into his arms. Her own arms were pinned in front of her as Mickey hugged her back, and Jenny covered her mouth with her hands but it hardly did anything to mask the ugly choked sounds of her sobbing. The tears didn't even slightly sting as they slid down Mickey's cheeks, his whole body numb as he watched over Jenny's shoulder, Martha try to staunch Rose's bleeding, and to get a response from her.

At Donna's shout, the rest of the room made an attempt to reconfigure their expressions, but they could not – and some of them did not want to – hide the sympathy and the horror they were feeling. On the periphery, a substantial band of soldiers joined the wounded Christopher, checking his poultice and helping him up, bracing him with their arms to observe the dramatic goings on.

For all his previous concern about the threat against them, the Doctor did not bat an eyelid as almost half the force opposite them shifted sides. He glared at Sergeant Tucker, teeth gritted, eyes dark, shoulders tense, his very blood seeming to boil. At the head of the crowd, Sergeant Tucker glared back down the barrel of his weapon, his posture unfailing and his expression hard. Sergeant Major McCarthy stepped slowly in front of Tucker, lowering a hand to indicate Tucker should lower his weapon. After a moment more, Tucker did so, and the Doctor's burning eyes locked onto McCarthy's face, which bore a vicious, satisfied sneer.

"Doctor?" Donna called.

"ROSE!" Another voice, a distinctively American voice. Something dark blue and heavy hit the ground. Jack rolled and stood, but knew better than to lay a hand on the fuming Time Lord. He turned to look at Rose. Martha was still bent over her, still working, but it didn't look good. The worry in Donna's eyes, standing nearby, made Jack's throat seize up.

"Jack."

It was the Doctor. He did not take his eyes off McCarthy, but held one hand out towards the Captain. Jack eyed it warily.

"I _really _don't think that's a good idea," he said.

"_Jack." _It was more of a growl now. Donna shivered, remembering that day with the Racnoss. Captain Jack slowly pulled one of his pistols from his belt. He did not strongly object to shooting anyone who now remained on the opposite side, _especially _not Tucker or this new guy, but the Doctor was...well, the Doctor. He doesn't kill people. He doesn't use guns.

"JACK!" The Doctor snapped. "GIVE ME THE GUN!"

Jack could not get out of the way fast enough. The Doctor snatched the pistol from his hand and stormed forward. The terrifying crunch of the gun preparing to fire was louder than ever as he held the barrel unwaveringly an inch from Sergeant Tucker's head.

"Oh my God," Amber whispered slowly, covering her mouth with both hands, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. From up here, from this strange angle, it was almost surreal – being unable to step in and change things, and yet, unable to deny the consequences: Rose, bleeding out on the floor; the Doctor playing the vengeful god; Jenny, her newest and already one of her closest friends, crying her heart out in the corner. "He's actually going to do it, isn't he?"

Josh offered her sympathetic eyes, tears of fear and pain beginning to slide down his cheeks, matching those already streaming down his sister's. Ty, between them, briefly wiped his eyes and then wrapped an arm around Amber's shoulders and hugged her close. The three of them stared in silent horror as the Doctor's trigger crept painfully slowly towards the firing pin.

"Doctor..." Jack rocked onto his front foot, arm outstretched, before realising that he would be no match for the angry Time Lord. At this rate, there was still a chance to diffuse the situation, but if he made a sudden move, the Doctor would act, and then anyone in the room could fall victim to a stray bullet. Jack glanced at Donna, but for once she was lost for words. Martha turned, fear and sorrow in her eyes as she slowly stood.

"Doctor," she began. "Think about this. Think about what you're doing, okay? Think...think about Rose. She needs you."

A tremor crossed the Doctor's face, but he fought to keep his expression hard. The nose of the gun began to tremble. The Doctor pulled it up, cocked it again and whirled on his feet to aim it at McCarthy. There was going to be no pause this time, no agonising wait while the trigger closed in. It was going to be fast and angry. Until -

"_STOP!"_

Jenny threw herself out of Mickey's arms, staggering towards her father, and though she was still out of his field of vision, her strangled voice betrayed her red eyes and tear-marked face.

"Stop, Dad, please! Mum wouldn't want you to do this!"

The Doctor's arm remained braced and ready, but he chanced a look over his shoulder and Jenny locked her eyes onto his.

"She told me stories about you. About how you could change people's minds, save worlds, with words. You never used a gun, she said. Not ever. She loved you for that – and so do I." Jenny's agonised expression slowly morphed towards a smile, her eyes sparkling with hope. Her father seemed to be listening. "My father would never do this. _We always have a choice."_

There was a long stretch of silence. Above and below, the spectators held their breaths. And at last, the Doctor's shoulders relaxed. Jack stepped up and took his pistol back, whipping it quickly out of sight, and McCarthy closed his eyes in a moment of pure relief. Donna and Martha almost laughed with the release of tension, and glanced up at the porthole, where Amber, Josh and Ty were hugging one another and laughing too.

Amongst all this, the Doctor sunk slowly to the ground, and gathered Rose up in his arms, trembling slightly as her one human heartbeat stuttered against his chest. _Not her, not Rose. _Not after all he had been through – all they had been through together, and all that she had saved him from. His pink and yellow human girl, with a smile that could light cities and a simple, powerful devotion to the people and the things that she loved. Rose Tyler. He pressed his lips to her forehead softly, but clung to her as, simultaneously, she were the most fragile flower but he could crush her back to life.

From high above, there was a long, mournful screech – full of age and loss, like the cry of a phoenix. The Doctor closed his eyes, letting his tears fall into Rose's hair, as it seemed the universe was in mourning with him.

Then the Tardis cloister bell sounded its first heart-stopping knell. The Doctor looked up, and met Jack's wide eyes.

"Doctor," he breathed, shocked – he had forgotten. "The sun is gone. The planet's going up. We've gotta get out of here."


	23. Epilogue?

**AN - Hello friends! Wow a LOT has happened in the Whoniverse since we last talked...**

**I'm not even going to try to excuse my lateness. It has been a pitifully long time since my last update and I am sorry. I have been busy but the main reason I haven't update is because...well I've been too happy lately! So I suppose it's a mixed blessing. But a writer is a writer and a sad story is a sad story so suck it up I did and here we are. I'm not sure about this being the epilogue epilogue, I might right a shorter little bit where we find out what happens to Jenny and stuff. I'm hesitant though because it might be overly sentimental. Having said that this is Doctor Who and they don't shy away from sentimentality. What do you guys think?  
**

**Otherwise, without further ado**

**Chapter Twenty Three – Epilogue**

When the Tardis materialised on the planet's surface, Amber flew through its doors almost immediately and made a bee-line for Jenny. She threw her arms around the sobbing blonde and hugged until neither of them could breathe. Ty and Josh followed a few steps behind, shock and sympathy hardening into spearheads in their chests as they watched the two girls over the console, clinging to each other and sobbing and crying.

"Heya," Mickey interrupted quietly, emerging from a nearby corridor. "You boys alright?"

Josh nodded slowly and crossed his arms over his chest. Ty cleared his throat and flexed his numb fingers. He quickly clenched his hands together as Donna and a notably coat-less Jack followed Mickey out of the passageway.

"It's bad," Jack said, so that neither of them would have to ask. Nobody mentioned the crack in his voice. "Rose...Rose is-" He shook his head and put his hands on his hips, sucking in breath and looking at the roof as if the word he could not say hung there. In a way, it did. Mickey opened his arms and the boys almost fell into them, grateful for a silent moment of being treated like the children they really were, who shouldn't have to deal with this. When Mickey released them, they staggered over to the girls and joined in a compound group hug with not a spoken signal between them.

Down the corridor, the Doctor crossed his arms and his ankles, and leant against the wall by the door of the Med-bay. Rose lay on her bed a few feet away, but the machines around her were silent. To either side of her, identical sets of beds and monitors recurred as if reflected endlessly in two mirrors facing each other. A few beds away, Chris Jackson sat, silently watching the Doctor over Martha's shoulder as she bandaged his leg.

"I thought he was going to kill us," he confessed, still staring over her shoulder. His voice crackled slightly as he recalled the terrible, electrifying presence of the stranger before the fall of the blonde woman. "I thought he was just going to leave us there to die. I really did."

Martha pursed her lips, unwilling to answer.

"Why didn't he?" Chris wondered. "Honestly, why didn't he? I think I would have. Not that I think it would have been a good thing, I mean most of us are just...just kids, really, I mean we were – we were just t-trusting our leader-"

"I understand," Martha interrupted in a hushed tone, hoping to bring her patient down to the same level. "Don't say that to him, though. He doesn't take things like that well. I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, just let it go."

In truth, the Doctor had been in no state to allow or refuse anyone entry to the Tardis. She, Donna and Jack had all but herded the crowd through those two blue doors and installed the majority of them in the gymnasium-like room down the hall to await return to Earth. The Sergeant and the Sergeant Major and a few loyalists had stayed behind out of spite, determined that their war was still going on, and would soon fall to the wrath of the stars, but Martha tried not to think about them. To be honest, though it wounded her a little to acknowledge, it was not hard to comfort herself; they had been liars, they had been warned, they had been offered a chance at safety and they had refused to take it, meanwhile people here were suffering and she might be able to help. She should direct herself to helping rather than re-evaluating humanity. So Martha focused on Chris' leg; one thing at a time.

"Who was she?" he asked after a long moment, finally tearing his eyes away from the Time Lord, who had scarcely even blinked since they set flight, to chase those of his doctor as she fixed the end of the bandage in place. Martha looked back up and smiled sadly. Chris let his eyes drift back to the Doctor for a moment, for the answer to his question was obvious: the angle was bad, from where he was sitting, but the darkness in the tall, thin man's eyes – the way he had so erratically reacted –

Chris swallowed. Offering out a pair of crutches to the young man, Martha backed away from the bed and he swung down off it, and hobbled to the door as quietly as he could, staring fiercely at the floor as he passed the Doctor. He expected to feel the burning sensation of the angry, grieving man's eyes baring into his back (after all, Chris could not help feeling some blame for what had happened, and he had less reason to hate himself than this man did to hate him), but he felt nothing. It was as if the man were simply a statue, an ornament. No. Wallpaper. There was no emotion at all coming from him, which for some reason, felt worse.

Martha followed Chris out shortly. She put a hand on one of the Doctor's, and looked up into his eyes. Both of them moved just slightly to lock her gaze, but they were passionless, lightless orbs and they barely seemed to register her. After a moment, they shifted slowly back to Rose. Martha let her hand fall and ducked out of the Med-bay.

.o.o.o.

Mickey was already holding one arm out for her when she returned to the console room, and he gave her a tight hug around her shoulders. Finally, she found she could breathe clearly, but Mickey's shoulders and hands were tight.

"So," she mumbled, resting her fingers on the hand that was almost fisted by her neck. "What do you think of him?"

"Ah," Mickey gave a shrug and pulled away. He wished she hadn't asked, he really did. "It's hard to call a mourning man a heartless bastard. I dunno what I think of him. But I guess- he really loved her. That's something."

He sat on the edge of the console and Martha nodded slowly, smiling a little. "That's something."

Jack and Donna drifted over, and each gave Martha a momentary hug of solidarity. The four of them stood in a circle, silent and unsure.

"We're going to have to tell Jackie and Pete somehow," Mickey said after a moment.

"That won't be hard." Jack put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath, reluctant to move on. "The stars are going out all over the place; there are probably crossover points like Messaline everywhere. You'll probably be able to get back, and even if you can't, Pete will be able to send a team after you."

"That's good."

Silence fell once more.

"What about Jenny though?" Donna wondered. "Does she want to go back?" She looked between the other four. None of them had asked or heard anything. Slowly, they turned as one to look over the console at Jenny and her friends; Jenny and Ty sat beside each other on the stairs, Amber and her brother hugging against the railing.

Before any of them could say anything more, the deathly silence of the console room was interrupted by the faint buzz of the scanner screen turning on. The image was a little distorted – from the storm damage Rose's departure had done to Mr Smith, Mickey imagined – but it was undeniably

"Sarah Jane Smith!" Captain Jack saluted with a grin. Sarah Jane blushed a little and cast her eyes around. Mickey, Martha and Donna crowded the console, and when Sarah Jane caught Donna's eye she looked somewhat relieved.

"Finally I've got the right time! I think the stars going out is interfering with the Tardis receptors, it's taken me ages to get through! Are you alright, I saw the Messaline sun go out- Where's the Doctor?"

"The Doctor's fine," Donna replied, since Sarah-Jane's eyes were still on her. "Well I mean, he's safe."

"Whatdoyoumean." The breath caught in the older woman's chest and Donna had to avert her eyes for a moment. It was easy to forget how many attachments the Time Lord had, and how deep they ran. At a time like this, it was difficult to be confronted by such a wonder as Sarah-Jane.

"And- and what about Rose?" Sarah-Jane pressed.

"I lost her." 

The four by the screen turned back to face the corridor. Jenny and Ty scrambled to their feet and the four teenagers gathered at the base of the stairs, staring up half in relief and half in horror at the new member of their conversation.

The Doctor passed a stern, acknowledging gaze over all of them and then swung himself onto the floor, but with weight rather than his usual levity. His feet hitting the grates sounded louder than usual in the silence. With a heavy sigh he leant on the console and pulled the screen towards him.

"She's gone."

He shut the screen off before Sarah Jane could say a word, but his fingers hovered over the switch for a long time, as if he might turn it back on. Slowly, he wandered around the console setting and pressing and tweaking, and his passengers watched. Its breathy engine _vworped _to life and the blue box disappeared from space, leaving Messaline and it star to crumble and burn alone.


End file.
